D T 
 
THE TREATY OF MISR 
 IN TABARI 
 
 A. J. BUTLER 
 
 Price Five Shillings net 
 
 OXFORD 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
THE TREATY OF MISR IN 
 TABARI 
 
HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO 
 
 MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY 
 
THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 
 
 IN TABARI 
 
 AN ESSAY IN HISTORICAL CRITICISM 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. BUTLER, D.LITT. 
 
 FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 1913 
 
CHIEF REFERENCES AND 
 ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 1. Tabarl, Annales. Ed. De Goeje. (Lugd. 
 
 Bat., 1879, &c. 8vo.) . . . . De Goeje. 
 
 2 . The First Mohammadan Treaties with Chris- 
 
 tians. By Stanley Lane-Poole, in Pro- 
 ceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
 Vol. XXIV. Sec. C, no. 13 . P. R.I. A. 
 
 3. Al Makrizi : Livre des Admonitions etc. ou 
 
 Description Historique et Topographique de 
 ffigypte : traduit par M. Paul Casanova : 
 ^ 6 partie. (Mtmoires de f Institut 
 Franc, ais d" ArchSologie Orientale du 
 Caire: Tome Hi, 1906.) . . . Casanova. 
 
 4. Annali delf Islam per Leone Caetani, 
 
 Principe di Teano. t. iv. (Milano, 1911) 
 
 fol. . . . Caetani. 
 
 5. History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church 
 
 in Patrologia Orientalis. t. i, fasc. 4 . Hist. Pat. 
 
 6. The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt. 
 
 Evetts and Butler (Anecdota Oxoniensia). 
 
 Oxford, 1895 .Abu Salih. 
 
 7. The Arab Ccnquest of Egypt. By A. J. Butler. 
 
 (Oxford, 1902.) Arab Conquest. 
 
THE TREATY OF MISR IN TABARI 
 
 IN returning to the very obscure and difficult sub- 
 ject of the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, I desire 
 generally to correct any important error proved 
 against my former work l by well-founded criticism, 
 to deal with, and if possible overthrow, certain objec- 
 tions which seem to be ill-founded, and to set out 
 revised conclusions based on later reflection and 
 research. 
 
 But the scope of this essay must be limited : and 
 I cannot hope or pretend to give here such a list of 
 corrections and additions as would be required if a 
 second edition of Arab Conquest were demanded. 
 No such demand is likely to come in my lifetime : 
 and, the wider field of travel being forbidden, all 
 I can do is to select some area which seems rich in 
 opportunities for the kind of excursion which I pro- 
 pose. Such an area seems to be provided by the 
 traditions which Tabari has recorded in his great 
 work, and to which I have not hitherto devoted the 
 detailed study which possibly they merit, and in 
 particular by the Treaty of Misr. 2 
 
 1 The Arab Conquest of Egypt. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902. 
 
 2 The reference is to de Goeje's well-known edition of Tabari. 
 I have been justly criticized for using Zotenberg's edition, and that 
 
8*. : V /'TBfi'tREATY OF MISR 
 
 "** Itrmay tenii -to clearness if these various traditions 
 or the chief of them are set out in the order of 
 Tabarl, although that does not correspond to any order 
 of chronology. As a rule a rough paraphrase or mere 
 outline will suffice : where questions of importance 
 arise, a literal translation will be given : and for the 
 actual treaty the Arabic text must accompany its 
 English rendering. The traditions are mainly seven 
 in number A, B, C, D, E, F, G which I will give, 
 each with its exordium. 
 
 A. Ibn Ishak says, as saidlbn Humaid, that Salamah 
 said on his authority, that : 
 
 Omar after subjugating the whole of Syria wrote 
 to 'Amr ibn al 'A si to march to Egypt with his 
 army. So he set out, and captured Bab al Yun 
 (Babylon) in the year A.H. 20. There is a difference 
 of opinion concerning the date of the taking of 
 Alexandria, some giving the year as A.H. 25. 
 
 B. 1 Ibn Humaid says that Salamah says thus, on the 
 authority of Ibn Ishak, who says that A I 
 Kasim (an Egyptian) ibn Kuzman told him 
 on the authority of Ziyad ibn Jazu, who said 
 he was in 'A mrs army when he took Misr and 
 Alexandria the following story : 
 
 We took Alexandria in the Caliphate of Othman 
 in the year A.H. 21 or 22. 
 
 error will not be here repeated : nor would it avail to explain the 
 reason for using Zotenberg originally. 
 
 1 De Goeje, pp. 2580-83. Ibn Humaid died 248 A. H., and 
 Salamah after 190 A. H. 
 
IN TABARl 9 
 
 After the capture of Bab al Yun we captured 
 gradually those villages of the Delta which were 
 between us and Alexandria, one after another, till 
 we reached Balhib. Our prisoners had already 
 reached Mecca, Medina, and Yemen at the time 
 when we reached Balhib : when the commander of 
 Alexandria sent to < Amr, saying, ' I have already paid 
 tribute to Persian and Roman, 1 whom I hate more 
 than you Arabs. I will pay you tribute, if you please, 
 provided that you restore the prisoners of Egypt 
 whom you have taken/ 
 
 'Amr answered, proposing in effect an armistice 2 
 till he could consult Omar and get his reply upon the 
 question : and this was agreed. They stayed at 
 Balhib till Omar's answer came, when 'Amr read it 
 out. It refused to restore the prisoners who were 
 already in Arab lands, as impracticable, but offered 
 to allow all prisoners in 'Amr's custody a free choice 
 between Christianity and Islam. These terms were 
 accepted by the commander of Alexandria. 
 
 Thereupon the captives were all mustered, and 
 each one had to pronounce in presence of the Arab 
 army and a large gathering of Christians. Every 
 decision was followed by shouts on one side or the 
 other, the Arab cheers being louder than the cheers 
 
 1 How could any Roman governor of Alexandria speak of having 
 paid tribute to the Romans? That would imply that he was in 
 revolt against the emperor. There is further no evidence whatever 
 to connect any one occupying the position of governor or com- 
 mander at this time with the period of Persian domination in 
 Egypt. 
 
 2 This may be a reminiscence of the eleven months' armistice 
 recorded by John of Nikiou. 
 
io THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 when a village is taken. The Arabs claimed that 
 the great majority chose Islam. 
 
 Al Kasim (the contemporary soldier) says : 
 * Among the prisoners was 'Abdallah ibn 'Abd ar 
 Rahman abu Maryam, who in my lifetime became 
 chief of the Banu Zubaid. When we gave him the 
 choice between Islam and Christianity, though his 
 father, mother, and brothers were among the Chris- 
 tians, he chose Islam, and we transferred him to us. 
 Then his father, mother, and brothers sprang out upon 
 him, assailing us with abuse, and they tore his gar- 
 ments. But he became our chief, as you may see 
 this day.' 
 
 ' After this Alexandria surrendered and we entered 
 it. ... He who thinks otherwise, viz. that Alex- 
 andria and the cities round about were not brought 
 under tribute, and that there was no treaty with the 
 inhabitants, by Allah he is a liar/ 
 
 Note. This tradition claims to be derived from a 
 soldier of the conquest. It insists that Alexandria 
 was surrendered under treaty, and it has some points 
 of correspondence with the history of John of 
 Nikiou. But it begins with the capture of Babylon 
 and says nothing about any treaty there. 
 
 C. 1 Tabarl writes that Saif says in the letter which 
 As Sari wrote to me (Tabart) that Shuaib 
 informed him on [Ibn IshaKs~\ authority and 
 that of Ar Rabla and that of Abu 'Utkmdn 
 and that of Abu Harithah, as follows : 
 
 1 De Goeje, p. 2584. 
 
IN TABARI ii 
 
 Omar remained at Jerusalem after making the 
 treaty of peace there, and sent 'Amr to Egypt. He 
 also sent Zubair in support. 
 
 Note. Here the authorities go back from Sari, 
 contemporary with Tabari, to Abu 'Uthman, who 
 died some seventy to eighty years after the subjuga- 
 tion of Egypt. It is obvious that very many links 
 in this chain of tradition are missing : nor is there 
 anything to show what documentary evidence, if 
 any, was available to Sari when he made his com- 
 munication in writing, or to what extent he relied 
 on mere oral tradition. 
 
 D. As Sari has written to me on the authority of 
 of Shuaib on the authority of Saif, who says 
 Abu * Uthman has told us on the authority of 
 Khalid ibn Mi' dan and ' Ubadah^ as follows : 
 
 * 'Amr set out to Egypt after Omar returned to 
 Medina, 2 and marched till he came to Bab al Yun. 
 Zubair followed, and they joined forces. Here Abu 
 Maryam, the katholikos of Misr, met them, with 
 him being the bishop [Abu Maryam] and the officials, 
 he [the katholicos] having been sent by Al Mukaukis 
 to protect their country.' 
 
 There was fighting then between these people 
 and 'Amr, who proposed a parley, details of which 
 are given by Tabari. 3 But the dialogue is too lengthy 
 for useful quotation, and the next words seem to 
 
 1 Khalid died 102 or 103 A. H., and 'Ubadah 118 A. H. 
 
 2 This obviously disagrees with C. 
 
 3 PP- 2585-6. 
 
12 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 record a story of treachery as follows : ' Quite 
 suddenly a raid was made on 'Amr and Zubair at 
 night by Farkab. 'Amr was prepared, and met 
 him : he and all his followers were killed.' Ibn al 
 Athir says ' the tribune was killed ', which implies 
 that Farkab was the military tribune. 1 But the 
 story is very confused, and continues thus : 
 
 ' 'Amr and Zubair marched straight for 'Ain 
 Shams : in it were a large number of them (the 
 enemy). 'Amr sent Abrahah ibn as Sabbah to Al 
 Farama, and 'Auf ibn Malik to Alexandria, and he 
 encamped against it. Then each of them said to the 
 men of his city, " If you capitulate, you shall have the 
 status of protection at our hands/' ' 2 and so forth. 
 
 Note. This tradition like the last appears to hang 
 upon the evidence of Tabari's contemporary Sari, 
 and a weak chain behind him. The same is true 
 of the following traditions, E and F. 
 
 E. As Sari has written to me (Tab art) on the 
 authority of Shuaib, on the authority of Saif, 
 on the authority of Abu ' Uthman and A bu 
 Harithah, that these two said as follows : 
 
 ' When 'Amr encamped against the people at 'Ain 
 Shams, the rule was between the Copts and the 
 Nubians. Zubair came with him. Then said the 
 people of Misr to their king, " Why do you go out 
 
 1 Ibn al Athir distinctly says that the tribune was called Artabun, 
 which, as I have shown, should be read Aretion. Arab Conquest, 
 p. 215, n. a. 
 
 2 The parley with these two cities by envoys sent during the 
 Arab march to Babylon is clearly legendary. 
 
IN TABARl 13 
 
 against a people which has smitten Chosroes and 
 Caesar (Heraclius) and vanquished them in their 
 countries ? Make terms with the people and get 
 a treaty from them and do not expose yourself to 
 them nor us to them." ' 
 
 ' And this was on the fourth day/ 
 
 What is meant by the fourth day is not clear : 
 probably the fourth day of a truce, which seems to be 
 referred to above (pp. 2586-7). Fighting followed : 
 Zubair mounted the wall of the fortress and descended 
 among them by force, while the people from within 
 the fortress are described as issuing out of the gate 
 to make terms with 'Amr. 
 
 The terms of the treaty of peace are now given 
 textually : and 
 
 ' All the people of Misr accepted this treaty, and 
 the horses were collected : 'Amr founded Fustat, and 
 the Muslims stayed there. Abu Maryam and Abu 
 Maryam appeared and spoke to 'Amr about the 
 prisoners captured after the battle' (? Heliopolis). 
 
 Then follows the well-known story of the Muslim 
 meal and the Egyptian banquet, with other matter 
 neither clear nor important. 
 
 F. As Sari 1 has written to me on the authority of 
 Shuaib on the authority of Saifon the authority 
 of Abu Said ar Rabia ibn an Numan on the 
 authority of 'A mr ibn Shrfaib, as follows : 
 
 1 When 'Amr and Al Mukaukis met at 'Ain Shams 
 and their cavalry began to fight ', there were signs of 
 insubordination in the Muslim ranks, and the Muslims 
 
 1 p. 2592. 
 
i 4 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 were very hard pressed for a while, though in the end 
 they won a complete victory. . . . ' Misr was captured 
 during the first Rabf in the year 16 and the sove- 
 reignty of Islam rose therein.' 
 
 G. l All ibn Sahl 1 informs me saying, Al Waltd ibn 
 Muslim has related that Ibn Lahl^ah told him 
 on the authority of Yazld ibn Hablb that : 
 
 * When the Muslims had conquered Egypt, they 
 sent an expedition to Egyptian Nubia ' : and the 
 expedition clearly was a failure. 
 
 1 p. 2593- 
 
IN TABARI 15 
 
 HAVING now sketched out the main traditions with 
 which we are concerned, I come to a discussion of the 
 treaty. The tradition in which it occurs depends 
 on the letter of Tabarfs contemporary Sari, who 
 got it from Shu'aib, Shu'aib from Saif (who died about 
 1 80 A. H.), and he from Abu 'Uthman (who died 
 about 100 A. H.). But these narrators can hardly 
 have repeated the text of the treaty, which Sari 
 professes to give and which he may have got from 
 an independent source. It is even possible that 
 he or some informant may have seen an original 
 document or a copy. On the other hand, there 
 are certain obscurities and difficulties, both in the 
 form and in the substance of the treaty, which 
 suggest that it has suffered from a process of hand- 
 ing down, whether by word of mouth or by written 
 record. Dr. Stanley Lane-Poole thinks that, broadly 
 speaking, the treaty bears on its face the seal of 
 its own authenticity : but the words giving the 
 total of the poll-tax and the method of its pay- 
 ment, as well as some other points, seem by their 
 uncertainty to denote at least the hand of a copyist. 
 We know that some early treaties were preserved : 
 Omar is said to have had a box full of them. They 
 were probably executed in duplicate, so that one 
 copy at least remained with the conquered people : 
 and in this case either the original or a copy may 
 conceivably have been seen by Tabari, or rather by 
 Sari his informant, 300 years later. But it requires 
 a somewhat robust faith to believe, as Dr. Lane-Poole 
 seems to believe, in the verbal inspiration of the text. 
 
16 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 However, if the Treaty of Misr is genuine, I must 
 grant that Tabari associates it very closely with the 
 fall of Babylon and not with the surrender of Alex- 
 andria. Consequently, if Tabari is right, I was 
 wrong, as Dr. Lane-Poole alleges, 1 in calling it the 
 Treaty of Alexandria and in identifying it with the 
 very important Treaty of Alexandria given by John 
 of Nikiou. 
 
 I propose, however, to reserve this question of the 
 genuineness of the treaty in Tabari to a later stage 
 in the argument : to take Tabari's version of events 
 as it stands : and to discuss 
 
 i. The time and place of the treaty : 
 ii. The parties to the treaty : 
 iii. The meaning of the treaty : 
 iv. The authenticity of the treaty : 
 and v. The identity of Al Mukaukis. 
 
 I. The moment at which the treaty was made and 
 the place. 
 
 On these matters there is little room for doubt, 
 if Tabari is to be believed. Tabari's story is as 
 follows. There had been at some point a parley 
 between the belligerents and a truce for four or five 
 days, which ended in the decision of the Romans to 
 reject the Muslim terms : and there is some evidence 
 that the truce was broken on the fourth day treacher- 
 ously. Fighting was renewed : but how long the 
 siege lasted after this rupture Tabari does not record. 
 Victory, however, determined in favour of the Arabs 
 at a moment when Zubair scaled the walls and 
 
 1 P. R.I. A., v. 240. 
 
IN JABARI 17 
 
 fought his way down into the fortress. At the same 
 moment tokens of surrender had been made, and 
 some of the defenders were on their way out to 
 arrange a capitulation. Zubair and his victorious 
 following joined the envoys of the garrison, and 
 accompanied them through the fortress gate to 
 'Amr's presence. Thereupon the brief but solemn 
 treaty of peace was drawn up and attested by Zubair 
 himself and his two sons, 'Abdallah and Muhammad. 
 Such is the somewhat unconvincing story. 
 
 There can be no question that the incident is 
 described as relating to the surrender of the Castle 
 of Babylon or Kasr ash Shama'. Dr. Lane-Poole in 
 his account of the matter remarks l that Tabari does 
 not name the fortress or city wall which Zubair 
 scaled. True ; but other Muslim writers leave no 
 shadow of doubt. They name the fortress Babylon : 
 they give the point at which the assault was made : 
 and Zubair's scaling-ladder was long preserved at 
 Fustat as a relic of the siege. Moreover, Dr. Lane- 
 Poole himself, in citing Makrizl's account, says 2 : 
 ' Fighting with the garrison of Babylon was accord- 
 ingly renewed : but finally Al Mukaukis persuaded 
 the people that resistance was hopeless, and 'Amr's 
 terms were accepted.' He urges, however, that ' the 
 capture of the fort, (^^acJl, must be distinguished 
 from the fall of the castle, ^-*ai)l, i.e. Baby- 
 lon. He bases this conclusion upon the supposed 
 discrepancy between the date given by John of 
 Nikiou for the surrender of the fortress of Babylon, 
 i.e. 9 April, 641 (which date is unimpeachable), and 
 Makrizl's statement that the negotiations between 
 1 P.R.I.A.,?. 242. 8 P.jR.LA.,p. 245. 
 
i8 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 c Amr and Al Mukaukis began at Raudah at the time 
 of high Nile, which would be about six months 
 earlier. But I think the discrepancy does not lie 
 here. We know that the negotiations failed and the 
 war continued : but there is no warrant for com- 
 pressing the duration of the renewed struggle into 
 a few days instead of six months. The endeavour 
 is made in order to identify the negotiations as 
 described by MakrizI with the four days' truce men- 
 tioned by Tabari. But this truce almost certainly 
 occurred shortly after the arrival of the reinforce- 
 ments under Zubair. 1 It is true that just before this 
 event the fact is recorded that ''Amr set out for 
 Egypt and marched till he came to Bab al Yun ' : 
 but this, taken as a general description of the march, 
 is not inconsistent with the insertion of detail which 
 follows, nor with the fact (which seems established) 
 that Zubair joined 'Amr's army before it had reached 
 Babylon. I therefore regard this parley and the 
 four days' truce as a quite distinct incident from the 
 Raudah negotiations at the time of high Nile, and 
 as having occurred some weeks earlier, and prior 
 to 'Amr's arrival at Babylon. So I disagree with 
 Dr. Lane-Poole's statement where he says 2 : ' Ac- 
 cording to Tabari, after the Arabs had reached 
 Babylon, there came to meet them on the part of 
 Al Mukaukis a patriarch {gathallk catholicus) and 
 a bishop. . . . This was before reinforcements had 
 reached the Muslims/ On the contrary, Tabari 
 says 3 : ' Zubair followed, and they joined forces. 
 Here Abu Maryam, the katholikos of Misr, met them, 
 
 1 Trad. D above, pp. 11-12. 2 P. R.I. A., p. 241. 
 
 8 De Goeje, p. 2584. 
 
IN TABARI 19 
 
 with him being the bishop/ and again l ' 'Amr and 
 Zubair marched straight for 'A in Shams'. 
 
 But the accounts, both in Tabari and in Makrizi, 
 are so wanting in clearness and precision that the 
 construction of any continuous narrative or orderly 
 sequence of events must admittedly be largely a 
 matter of remote inference or even conjecture. 
 
 Dr. Lane-Poole, however, in order to uphold his 
 theory has to connect the treaty, not with the fall of 
 Babylon, i.e. Kasr ash Shama', but with the fall of 
 a fort on the ridge of rocky ground to the south, on 
 which, according to Strabo, there stood in his day 
 a fort originally erected by the Persians some 500 
 years earlier. This attempt to deprive Trajan's 
 fortress of its well-known name of Babylon assumes 
 the survival of the old original Persian fort in the 
 seventh century, an assumption which rests upon no 
 proof whatever, but is contradicted by explicit evi- 
 dence of the Arab historians. It might suffice to say 
 that Abu '1 Mahasin definitely calls the fortress 
 Kasr ash Shama', 2 while Makrizi agrees with other 
 writers in stating that the fortress was opposite the 
 island of Raudah, as Dr. Lane-Poole himself admits. 3 
 No other fortress but Trajan's (or Kasr ash Shama') 
 corresponds in any way with this description, and the 
 suggested identification of the fortress in Tabari 
 with the Istabl Antar* is altogether impossible. 
 Indeed, it is a mistake into which no one familiar 
 
 1 De Goeje, p. 2586. 
 
 2 Annales, edd. Juynboll et Matthes, vol. i, p. 8 (Lugd. Bat., 
 1855-61). 
 
 3 P.R.LA.^. 244. 
 
 4 This identification occurs in Dr. Lane-Poole's Cairo Fifty 
 Years Ago, pp. 146-7, to which he refers (Murray, 1896). 
 
 B 2 
 
20 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 with the topography of the region could possibly 
 fall ; and Lane's evidence proves at most the exist- 
 ence of a Roman embankment at the foot of the 
 ridge. There is not a single trace of any ancient 
 building upon the ridge. Severus, too, expressly 
 says * : ' The Arabs . . . arrived at a fortress built of 
 stone, situated between Upper Egypt and the Delta 
 and called Babylon. . . . Then the Arabs called that 
 place, namely the fortress, Bablun al Fustat and that 
 is its name to this day/ Severus uses the terms 
 jjc& and 0*2^ indifferently, and I venture to say 
 that there is no warrant whatever for distinguishing 
 them. Dr. Lane-Poole says 2 : 'The capture of the 
 fort, eosJl, must evidently be distinguished from 
 the fall of the castle^ai)!. . . . Makrizi mentions 
 another fortress besides Kasr ash Shama' . . . and 
 this other fortress which was situated on a rocky hill 
 to the south-east of Kasr ash Shama', and was within 
 the city, was particularly called the fortress or palace 
 jc& of Babylon/ What is the authority for this 
 statement ? It may rest on the mistaken evidence 
 of Al Kudai, which Makrizi cites, but admits to be 
 at variance with the much higher authority of Ibn 
 'Abd al Hakam. 3 
 
 But M. Casanova, in his learned edition of 
 Makrizi lends countenance to a theory at once 
 similar and dissimilar to that of Dr. Lane-Poole. 
 Commenting on the statement in Makrizi's text 
 that the Muslims laid siege to Bab al Yun, in which 
 were Romans, Copts, and the Mukaukis, Casanova 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. MS., 26100, p. 105. 2 P. R. I. A., p. 245. 
 
 3 See M. Casanova's Makrizi, part iii, p. 109 (Imprimerie de 
 I'lnstitut Fran9ais au Caire, 1906). 
 
IN TABARI 21 
 
 writes : ' Cette tradition, en effet, semble en contra- 
 diction avec la premiere. Mais il est a remarquer 
 qu'il s'agit cette fois de Bab alioun, et puisque ce 
 nom subsiste encore, il faut en conclure qu'il y a eu 
 deux sieges distincts, celui de Kasr ach Cham* et 
 celui de Bab alioun ' x : and he goes on to say that 
 Strabo's description excludes the Kasr ash Shama*, 
 while it fits the height of the modern Bablun, ' qui 
 est tres escarpee du cote du Nil ', thus assuming the 
 existence of the old fort at the conquest. So he makes 
 two sieges and two forts : but whereas Dr. Lane- 
 Poole says that the hisn was Kasr ash Shama*, while 
 the kasr was on the rocky ridge, Casanova says 
 that the hisn was the fortified enclosure of the town, 
 while ' le kasr d6signe tout particulierement la for- 
 teresse de Baby lone'. But I confess that I find his 
 reasoning hard to follow. For at one moment he 
 says that Kasr ash Shama*, 'qui reprtsentait la ville, 
 fut prise de vive force,' and the next that ' le hisn 
 repondrait mieux a la ville meme ' : and when he 
 charges me with failing to see the difference between 
 the two forts 2 and the two Arab traditions, and of 
 error in describing Kasr ash Shama* as ' the Roman 
 fortress of Babylon ', I stand not only impenitent 
 but more convinced than ever that my description is 
 correct, that the name Babylon was applied to Kasr 
 ash Shama as well as to the town of Misr, that Bab 
 al Yun or Bab aliun is a mere blunder for ' Babylon ', 
 
 1 Casanova, p. 121 n. 
 
 2 Casanova, p. 1 2 1 n. I pointed out the difference between 
 Strabo's fort and Kasr ash Shama' built by Trajan, at least twenty 
 years before Casanova's work was published, viz., in my Ancient 
 Coptic Churches^ vol. i, pp. 1 7 1-4. The charge against me there- 
 fore is not very well founded. 
 
22 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 and that in all the hazy and confused statements 
 about the fortress made by the Arab historians, the 
 reference is to Kasr ash Shama' and not to the early 
 Persian fort, of which no trace remained at the con- 
 quest. 
 
 For Makrizi himself definitely calls the fortress 
 hisn. 1 He identifies the site, rightly or wrongly, 
 with that of an early Persian fort, which, he says, 
 lay in ruins 500 years before the Romans rebuilt it. 2 
 Moreover, he quotes Ibn 'Abd al Hakam in the 
 same connexion as saying that * the Persians founded 
 the fortress (hisn) which is to-day at Fustat Misr' : 
 and he further cites Al Kudai as remarking of the 
 Kasr ash Shama' that it was begun by the Persians, 
 but finished by the Romans, who held it till the 
 Arab conquest. 
 
 Now two things are clear from this : (i) that at 
 the date of the conquest, i.e. some seven centuries 
 after Strabo's time, all trace of the original Persian 
 fort had vanished, and (2) that Arab writers identify, 
 however mistakenly, the site of the two fortresses, 
 the Persian and the Roman, and not only fail to 
 distinguish them, but are not conscious that any 
 question of a distinction could arise. That Zubair's 
 exploit is connected with Kasr ash Shama' by them, 
 is certain : and if, as Casanova urges, the fortress 
 in question were Strabo's fortress on the steep ridge, 
 
 1 Casanova, p. 121. 
 
 2 This, of course, is wrong. Something at least of the old 
 Persian fort survived in Strabo's time, and Kasr ash Shama' was 
 built by Trajan. Yet it is quite possible, indeed very probable, 
 that Trajan found Persian remains, whether of temple or fort, on 
 the site of Kasr ash Shama', as the stories of Murtadi and Yakut 
 indicate. 
 
IN TABARI 23 
 
 the incident of 'Ubadah, 1 which turns on Roman 
 horsemen issuing from the fortress gate and being 
 chased back to it, would be impossible even of 
 invention it would be too ludicrous. MakrizI, how- 
 ever, not only connects the fortress of the conquest 
 with the island of the arsenal or Raudah, but he says 
 that boats were moored against this fortress. It is 
 absolutely impossible to apply such a description to 
 any fortress but Kasr ash Shama' : 2 that it was true 
 of Kasr ash Shama' is proved by the whole tenor 
 of the Arab stories of the siege, and the proof has 
 been confirmed and rendered visible lately by the 
 excavations which have revealed the channel or 
 waterway and small quay at the very foot of the Iron 
 Gate of the fortress. Lastly, I would urge that even 
 if a detached fort existed on the ridge, the capture 
 of such a secondary position could not be the deter- 
 mining factor in the operations round Misr, so long 
 as the huge and immensely powerful fortress erected 
 by Trajan the fortress in which the Roman com- 
 mander had his head-quarters still defied the 
 Muslim arms. 
 
 Both the military exigencies of the case, therefore, 
 and the records of the Arab historians point to 
 Kasr ash Shama' as that castle of Babylon which 
 they represent as capitulating under the Treaty of 
 Misr. Indeed the evidence of their intention is so 
 
 1 Casanova, p. 119. 
 
 2 Casanova remarks, in objecting to my contention : * II serait 
 dtrange qu'une forteresse fut en plaine et imme'diatement domine'e 
 par une hauteur.' To this I reply, that the strangeness does not 
 alter the fact, and that it would be much more strange if boats were 
 moored to a fortress on the top of a hill. 
 
24 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 overwhelming, that any other theory is untenable : 
 although I must assert with emphasis that the ques- 
 tion what the Arab historians intended to repre- 
 sent is totally different from the question whether 
 their representation of the facts is correct. And 
 while I think Tabari's opinion very clear, I think it 
 no less mistaken, as will be shown. 
 
 II. The Parties to the Treaty. 
 
 Granted that the treaty is genuine, it bears its 
 own witness to the fact that it was made between 
 'Amr, the commander of the Arab forces, and the 
 people of Misr in general. 
 
 It is also clear that, according to Tabari, the treaty 
 was made on the side of the people of Misr by pleni- 
 potentiaries who came out of the fortress, in other 
 words by the defenders of the fortress. Unfortun- 
 ately in the early Muslim treaties it was not the 
 practice for both parties to set their hand to the 
 instrument. The signing, sealing, and delivering 
 was all done by the Muslims : and the treaty is rather 
 a grant of security and protection conditional upon 
 terms to be observed than a deed of mutual cove- 
 nants solemnly entered into and executed between 
 two parties. Hence in this case there is nothing 
 in the document to show who actually negotiated 
 the treaty on behalf of the people of Misr, and the 
 question can only be settled by external evidence. 
 
 Dr. Lane-Poole says boldly : l ' It is abundantly 
 
 evident that this is a treaty with the Copts, not 
 
 with the Romans. . . . The people of Misr, not the 
 
 Roman army of occupation, still less the emperor 
 
 1 P.R.LA., p. 239. 
 
IN TABARI 25 
 
 Heraclius, were the contracting parties on the other 
 side. As there is no indication in the treaty itself 
 that the Romans were consulted in the matter, we 
 must conclude that this treaty was made behind 
 their backs ; that it was a compact between the 
 Copts and the Arabs without the authority of the 
 Roman garrison, though these last had the option of 
 accepting the same terms/ Again, 1 ' It was, as is 
 evident, a treaty with the Copts of the city of Misr 
 as against the Romans : ' once more : 2 ' Tabari's story 
 fits perfectly with the contents of the treaty, which 
 is thus shown to be a treaty with the Egyptian 
 people against the wish of the Roman army of 
 occupation:' and finally, 3 'In each story' (i.e. 
 Tabari's and Makrizi's) ' it is essentially a treaty with 
 the Copts, not with the Romans/ 
 
 Now what is the justification for all this ? It is 
 neither more nor less than the fact that to the 
 people of Misr was conveyed the grant of security 
 under the treaty. Starting with that fact, Dr. Lane- 
 Poole lays down the proposition that the people of 
 Misr were Copts : he then argues that the Copts were 
 hostile to the Romans, and that consequently the 
 treaty was made in favour of the Copts : and he 
 concludes that the treaty, being in favour of the 
 Copts, was not only 'without the authority of the 
 Romans ', but * against the Romans ' and ' behind 
 their backs '. Such is the logical process, which now 
 has to be examined. 
 
 Who were the people of Misr? In the first place, as 
 Dr. Lane-Poole remarks, the term Misr has a double 
 meaning the capital city and the country of Egypt 
 1 p- 241. 2 p. 243. 3 p. 245. 
 
26 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 and we do not even know for certain which was 
 intended. But he adduces the analogy of other early 
 Muslim treaties those of Damascus, Lydda, and 
 Jerusalem and argues that the practice of the Arabs 
 was to make a treaty, upon the capture of a chief town, 
 with the townsfolk. Accordingly Misr in the present 
 case should be taken as meaning the city of Misr, 
 which lay over and spread beyond the region now 
 miscalled Old Cairo, though it seems to have been 
 identified loosely at times with the ancient Memphis 1 
 and its environs on both banks of the Nile. How 
 far the city of Misr extended at the time of the con- 
 quest, and what fortifications it had besides Kasr ash 
 Shama', cannot be known. But there is evidence 
 that it extended somewhat widely. The outpost of 
 'Umm Dunain (the Tendounias of John of Nikiou) 
 lay at a point now represented by the Esbekiah in 
 Cairo, and the very ancient churches in the Harat ar 
 Rum and Harat az Zuwailah were apparently con- 
 sidered within the old city of Misr, as Abu Salih z 
 seems to indicate ; and the same writer also describes 
 the city of 'Ain Shams as lying outside the city of 
 Misr. But there is no evidence of any wide circum- 
 vallation : for the battle of 'Ain Shams and the fall 
 of Tendounias seem to have been followed quickly 
 by the Arab occupation of Misr and the siege of the 
 formidable fortress of Babylon. 3 Here the resistance 
 of the Romans was concentrated : but it is quite 
 
 1 MakrizT, Suttans Mamlouks, t. ii, p. 119 (ed. Quatremere, 
 Paris, 1845). 
 
 2 pp. 86-7, and notes : but the matter is not clear of doubt. 
 
 8 Note that John of Nikiou in his chapter-headings clearly dis- 
 tinguishes the capture of Misr from the fall of Babylon. 
 

 IN TABARl 27 
 
 certain that there was also a large population in the 
 city of Misr. 
 
 Of what race or creed was this population ? The 
 answer is plain Egyptian though there was 
 doubtless some small admixture of Jews, Arabs, 
 Berbers, and Nubians. But it must be remembered 
 that the Egyptians at this time, though all Christian, 
 were of two races and two creeds, viz. by race either 
 Copts or Graeco-Romans (Byzantines), by creed 
 either monophysites or melkites. But the racial 
 cleavage by no means coincided with the religious 
 division : in other words a Roman might hold the 
 Coptic form of faith, and a Copt might hold the 
 melkite (or Roman or Chalcedonian) form. 
 
 Now if there is one thing indisputable in all this 
 tangled story, it is that for the ten years preceding 
 the time of the Arab invasion, and at that time, 
 the Copts suffered the severest persecution at the 
 hands of Cyrus, the nominee of Heraclius as patri- 
 arch of Alexandria and governor-general of Egypt. 
 It is certain also that the Copts had neither bishop 
 nor leader in the city of Misr, since their patriarch 
 and all their prominent men had been driven into 
 exile into the mountains and deserts. Whatever the 
 relative number of the Copts might have been even 
 if they were as numerous at this military centre as 
 the Romans and Roman sympathizers it is not 
 conceivable that there should have existed then in 
 the city of Misr a body of Copts in a position to 
 enter upon a treaty with the victorious Arabs. 
 
 Apart from this, however, one must not exaggerate 
 the distinction between Copt and Roman. It must 
 be remembered that the Graeco-Romans at this time 
 
28 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 were not an alien army of occupation, as Dr. Lane- 
 Poole seems to imagine them. The country had been 
 Graeco- Roman for 700 years, and for centuries longer 
 if we date the mixture of race, as is right, to the early 
 Greek settlements and trace it through Ptolemaic 
 times. It was the Hellenes, and not the Italians, 
 who contributed and maintained that element of the 
 population which came to be called in later times 
 Roman or Byzantine. And during all those cen- 
 turies there had been a continuous mingling of the 
 two races ; so that although the Egyptian racial type 
 probably prevailed by reason of that unchangeable 
 and invincible vitality which has ever marked it, yet 
 the dominant civilization of the country at this time 
 was Hellenic, whether called Byzantine or Graeco- 
 Roman ; and from Pelusium to Barca, from Alex- 
 andria to Syene and Meroe, the land was covered 
 with cities bearing Graeco-Roman names cities in 
 which the arts, the architecture, the language and the 
 letters were far more Graeco-Roman than Coptic. 
 
 Nor is there any reason to think that the city of 
 Misr or city of Babylon, as it was also called, 1 pre- 
 sented any exception to the rule. 
 
 To say therefore that by the term people of Misr 
 only the Copts could be meant, is to make a quite 
 baseless and unwarranted assumption. 
 
 But there are other obvious objections. A good 
 
 1 Ptolemy, for example, calls it City of Babylon; so does 
 Palladius. It is frequently so called in the Aphrodite papyri, and 
 the name may be traced onwards to the middle ages. Thus Sir 
 J. Mandeville speaks of Egypt as ' the land of Babylon ', and the 
 term ' Soldan ', ' Suldan ', or ' Sowdone ' (i. e. Sultan) ' of Babylon ', 
 was commonly used in English, and its analogue in continental, 
 literature up to the sixteenth century to denote the ruler of Egypt, 
 
IN TABARI 29 
 
 deal of the confusion caused by the use of the term 
 Copts in the Arab historians springs from the fact 
 that the term did not originally bear the precise and 
 limited meaning which it now bears in common 
 parlance. There is no doubt that at the time of the 
 conquest the Arabs frequently used the term Copts 
 as synonymous with Egyptians, i. e. as denoting the 
 people of Egypt generally, and that a distinction 
 between the Coptic and the Graeco- Roman elements 
 in the population was not ordinarily present to their 
 minds. Of course if a special reinforcement of 
 imperial troops entered Egypt at any time by order 
 of Heraclius, those troops would be called distinc- 
 tively Roman by the Arabs, and are perhaps so 
 referred to in the Treaty of Misr, in which be it 
 remarked the Copts are not even mentioned. But 
 that the Graeco- Roman inhabitants, as well as the 
 Coptic, were often included under the term Copts is 
 unquestionable. 
 
 This fact explains much that is otherwise inexpli- 
 cable. For instance, Dr. Lane-Poole quotes Makrizi 
 as saying that Al Mukaukis ' left the fortress of 
 Babylon in company with the leaders of the Copts ', 
 and crossed to the island of Raudah. Whoever Al 
 Mukaukis was, he was the Roman governor of 
 Egypt : and it is certain from John of Nikiou that 
 the Copts within the fortress during the siege were 
 actually in prison, and were barbarously treated by 
 the Romans. Again Tabari records a representation 
 in favour of peace made by the people of Misr to 
 their king (^s\$Ju). This king cannot possibly mean 
 Heraclius, who is called Caesar in the same passage, 
 and can only mean ruler, i. e. the viceroy Al 
 
30 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 Mukaukis. And that meaning is placed beyond 
 doubt by the words of Mas'udi, 1 who calls Al 
 Mukaukis king of Misr and lord of the Copts, and 
 says that he used to spend part of the year in 
 Alexandria, part in the city of Menf or Memphis, 
 part in Kasr ash Shama'. Now it is clearly ridiculous 
 to speak of Al Mukaukis as king or ruler of the 
 Copts as opposed to the Romans, or in any other 
 sense than as ruler of the Egyptians. Indeed that 
 supposition is refuted by Dr. Lane-Poole's own 
 words, where he gives Makrizl's story as follows : 2 
 
 * Fearing that the fortresses would fall, he (Al 
 Mukaukis) opened negotiations with the Arabs. He 
 urged that the Romans were far more numerous and 
 better equipped than the Muslims. . . . But Al 
 Mukaukis could obtain no modification of the terms. 
 Fighting with the garrison of Babylon was accord- 
 ingly renewed : but finally Al Mukaukis persuaded 
 the people that resistance was hopeless, and 'Amr's 
 terms were accepted a poll-tax of two dinars a 
 head, &c.' 
 
 Clearly here Al Mukaukis was speaking as repre- 
 sentative not of Copts but of Romans. I need not 
 labour the point : but I pass on to another of even 
 greater importance. If the treaty is genuine, it was 
 a military convention between belligerents marking 
 the surrender of a great Roman stronghold : and it is 
 sheer absurdity to imagine that the Copts, who had 
 no separate existence as a belligerent party, could have 
 arranged such a convention in their own favour 
 4 behind the backs of the Romans ' and * against the 
 Romans '. 
 
 1 ii. 412, ed. Barbier de Meynard. 2 P.R.I. A., p. 244. 
 
IN TABARI 31 
 
 To put the matter quite plainly, I would ask the 
 following questions : 
 
 (1) Is it denied that Al Mukaukis was himself a 
 Roman as distinguished from a Copt, and was 
 Roman governor of Egypt ? 
 
 (2) Is it denied that the military governor of the 
 fortress of Babylon was a Roman in the same sense ? l 
 
 (3) Is it denied that the garrison of the fortress 
 was Roman and under Roman officers to the exclu- 
 sion of Copts ? 
 
 (4) Is it denied that the defenders of the fortress 
 capitulated and entered into the Treaty of Misr ? 
 
 On one and all of these points denial is impossible, 
 whether regard be had to Dr. Lane-Poole's own 
 admissions or to the whole evidence of Coptic and 
 Arabic chronicles. 
 
 But if this is so, if the Treaty of Misr was 
 negotiated by the Roman commander or ruler and 
 the Roman defenders of the besieged fortress of 
 Babylon on behalf of the people of Misr ; how is it 
 possible to maintain that the treaty was made ' with 
 the Copts and not with the Romans ', * behind the 
 backs of the Romans ', ' between the Copts and the 
 Arabs without the authority of the Roman garrison ', 
 and finally that it was ' a treaty with the Copts of 
 the city of Misr as against the Romans ' ? Clearly 
 such a theory is absolutely untenable ; and if there 
 is any truth in Tabarl's story, the treaty was made 
 with the Romans on behalf of the people of Misr, 
 whether Graeco-Roman or Coptic. 
 
 1 Dr. Lane-Poole is wrong in calling the governor of the 
 fortress Aretion (p. 242). I do not know what his authority for 
 this statement is : but it would seem that Aretion was the tribune 
 killed in the night attack upon the Arabs, v. supra, p. 1 2, n. i . 
 
32 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 III. The Meaning of the Treaty 
 
 It remains now to give the text of the treaty and 
 to consider its interpretation. Dr. Lane-Poole points 
 out very justly its close correspondence with the 
 earlier treaty, which was granted by the Caliph 
 Omar at the capitulation of Jerusalem, and he 
 remarks that 'Amr ibn al 'Asi, who made the Treaty 
 of Misr, was present and subscribed the Treaty of 
 Jerusalem as witness : moreover the two treaties 
 * contain not only practically identical clauses but 
 even absolutely identical words and phrases ' : 'Amr 
 therefore modelled the Treaty of Misr on the Treaty 
 of Jerusalem. I propose further to follow Dr. Lane- 
 Poole in setting out both the treaties, though on the 
 comparison I shall have to base some conclusions 
 quite at variance with his. 
 
 The Arabic text is as follows (De Goeje, 
 p. 2588) : 
 
IN TABARI 33 
 
 Lo jU $\9 
 
 AAJO e 
 
 One may translate as follows : 
 
 In the name of God, the Merciful, the Com- 
 passionate. 
 
 i. This is what Amr ibn al 'A si granted the 
 people of Misr to wit, security for their per- 
 sons and their religion and their property, their 
 churches and their crosses, their land and their 
 water. In none of these things shall there be any 
 encroachment nor any abatement of their rights. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Lane-Poole translates doubtfully ' There shall not be taken 
 from them anything of this nor diminished '. He quotes De Sacy's 
 rendering : * On n'attentera a leurs droits relativement a aucune de 
 ces choses et on ne leur fera e'prouver aucun tort/ Memoires de 
 rinstitut (Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres), v. 35. Caetani 
 renders, ' In niuna di queste cose entrera (il governo Arabo) e nulla 
 sara tolto ' (Annali dell* Islam, vol. iv, p. 304). I am following 
 Caetani in numbering the clauses of the treaty for the sake of 
 convenience, just as he follows my numbering for the Treaty of 
 Alexandria given by John of Nikiou. 
 
34 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 2. The Nubians l shall not settle among them. 
 
 3. The people of Misr are bound to pay the 
 poll-tax, if they agree upon this treaty of peace 
 and the inundation of their river has reached full 
 level fifty millions. 
 
 4. They are responsible for any acts of their 
 brigands. 
 
 5. If any of them refuse [the terms of the 
 treaty], the total of the poll-tax shall be reduced 
 for them in proportion ; and we are free of obliga- 
 tion to protect those who refuse. 
 
 6. If their river does not rise to its usual level, 
 then the sum [of taxation] shall be reduced for 
 them in proportion. 
 
 7. Whosoever of the Romans or the Nubians 
 enters into their treaty, for him are the same rights 
 as for them (i. e. the people of Misr) and the same 
 obligations. 
 
 8. Whosoever refuses [these terms] and chooses 
 to depart, he shall be safe until he reaches his own 
 place of security or quits our dominion. 
 
 9. The tribute imposed is to be paid by three 
 equal instalments, one-third at each payment. 
 
 10. For what is written in this treaty stands 
 the pledge and warranty of God, the warranty of 
 His Prophet, the warranty of the Caliph, the 
 Commander of the Faithful, and the warranty of 
 the Faithful. 
 
 11. For the Nubians who come under this 
 treaty, it is prescribed that they shall furnish so 
 
 1 I totally reject Dr. Lane-Poole's translation of garrisons, with 
 which Caetani dallies needlessly, though he decides against it in 
 the end. My reasons will be given below. 
 
IN TABARI 35 
 
 many head (of cattle) and so many horses ; and in 
 return x they shall not be plundered nor hindered 
 in their trade, coming or going. 
 
 Witnesses, Az Zubair and 'Abdallah and Mu- 
 hammad, 2 his sons. Wardan wrote the treaty, and 
 there were present . . . (so and so names omitted). 
 
 Such is the Treaty of Misr. I now give the 
 Treaty of Jerusalem, mainly in Dr. Lane-Poole's 
 translation : 
 
 In the name of God the Compassionate, the 
 
 Merciful. 
 
 1. This is what the servant of God, Omar, 
 Commander of the Faithful, gave to the people of 
 Jerusalem in pledge of security. He gave them 
 security for their persons and their goods and their 
 churches and their crosses, and its 3 sick and its 
 sound, and all of their religion : their churches 
 shall not be impoverished or destroyed : nor shall 
 [aught] of it be diminished, neither of its appur- 
 tenances nor of its crosses nor of anything of its 
 provisions. And they shall not be forced against 
 their faith, and not one of them shall be harmed. 
 
 2. None of the Jews shall dwell with them in 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 3. The people of Jerusalem are bound to pay the 
 poll-tax as the people of Madain (Ctesiphon) pay it. 
 
 4. They are bound to expel the Romans and 
 brigands from [the city]. 
 
 1 The Arabic ^\ ^s- denotes the other side of the bargain : i. e. 
 they gain immunity from plunder and freedom to trade. 
 
 2 No son of Zubair named Muhammad is known to history. 
 
 3 The use of pronouns here and elsewhere is irregular, but the 
 sense is generally clear. 
 
 C 2 
 
36 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 5. Whosoever [of the Romans, &c.] goes away, 
 shall be safe in person and property until they 
 reach their own place of safety ; and whoever 
 remains shall be safe and under the same obliga- 
 tion as the people of Jerusalem to pay the poll-tax. 
 
 6. Whosoever of the people of Jerusalem prefers 
 to take his goods and to depart along with the 
 Romans, and leave their churches and crosses, 
 they shall be safe in person until they reach their 
 own place of security. 
 
 7. Whosoever of the people of the country was 
 in Jerusalem before the fighting, if he wish to 
 settle, on him are binding the same terms as on 
 the people of Jerusalem, the poll-tax ; and if he 
 wishes to depart with the Romans or to return to 
 his own people [he may do so]. 
 
 8. Nothing shall be taken from them (i.e. the 
 people of the treaty) until the harvest is gathered. 
 
 9. For what is in this treaty stands the pledge 
 and warranty of God, the warranty of His Prophet, 
 the warranty of the Caliph, and the warranty of 
 the Faithful, provided that they pay the due 
 amount of the poll-tax. 
 
 Witnesses, Khalid ibn Walid, 'Amr ibn al 'Asi, 
 'Abd ar Rahman ibn l Auf, and Mu'awlah ibn Abi 
 Sufian. 
 
 Though on the whole I have taken Dr. Lane- 
 Poole's translation, I have thought it better to 
 arrange and number the clauses, and in cl. i to 6 
 I have made verbal changes ; but in cl. 7 and 8 I have 
 given what I think is the right translation in cor- 
 rection of Dr. Lane-Poole's rendering, which seems 
 
IN TABARI 37 
 
 to miss the sense completely indeed to make no 
 sense at all. He renders : 
 
 * And whoso of the people of the land was in it 
 [Jerusalem] before the fighting, if he wish to settle, on 
 him is binding the like as what [is binding] on the 
 people of Jerusalem, a poll-tax, and if he wishes to 
 depart with the Romans or to return to his own 
 people, nothing shall be taken from them [i. e. in 
 poll-tax] until the harvest is reaped.' 
 
 Either the words ' and if he wishes to depart with 
 the Romans or to return to his own people ' are re- 
 dundant and should go out of the text; or after them 
 must be understood words like ' he is free to do so ' ; 
 or, as I think better, the text must be rendered in 
 the way I have rendered it. In any case a break is 
 required before the words about the collection of the 
 poll-tax, which must be marked off and stand apart, 
 because they obviously apply not to those who 
 depart, but to all who come under the treaty. And 
 this provision for collecting the tribute after harvest 
 clearly corresponds to the provision in the Egyptian 
 treaty for the collection after high Nile. 
 
 Returning now to the Treaty of Misr, one may note 
 that the first clause grants security for the persons, 
 property, and religion of the Christians, thus agreeing 
 with the first clause in the Treaty of Jerusalem. 
 
 In cl. 2 I read a similar agreement : for just as the 
 Treaty of Jerusalem prohibits the Jews from dwelling 
 in the Holy City, so the Treaty of Misr prohibits 
 the Nubians from settling in Misr. But Dr. Lane- 
 Poole will have none of this agreement. He 
 destroys the obvious correspondence by banishing 
 
38 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 the Nubians altogether from the treaty, reading the 
 Arabic e^ (which means Nubians) as Oli and 
 giving it the entirely novel meaning of garrisons : l 
 so that he renders cl. 2, ' The garrisons shall not 
 settle among them/ I shall try to show that this 
 rendering is not only wrong but impossible. 
 
 Of course I admit that the analogy between 
 the case of the Jews at Jerusalem and that of the 
 Nubians in Egypt at the date of the respective 
 treaties is not very striking. When the Treaty of 
 Jerusalem was concluded, it was but twenty years 
 since the Christians had suffered the massacre 
 by thousands of their women and children, and the 
 plunder and destruction of their churches, at the 
 hands of the Persians ; and they remembered that 
 in all this work the Jews had sided with the Persians 
 and had goaded them on to deeds of ferocity. The 
 Christians, therefore, had good reason to bargain for 
 the expulsion of the Jews from the city. Now it 
 cannot be shown that the people of Misr had the 
 same reason to bargain for the exclusion of the 
 Nubians from their city ; but it can be shown that 
 they had quite sufficient reason to claim protection 
 against the Nubians, and to debar Nubians from 
 settling in the country. Nothing more is required 
 for my argument. 
 
 1 On the mere question of grammar _>y may be accented as 
 (l>y , but there is no authority for its use in the sense of garrisons 
 at so early a date, even if it was ever used with that extended 
 meaning. It means literally times or turns, and so turns-about, 
 * a tour de role,' and then in later usage something like a change 
 of guard, or finally a guard-post subject to relief at stated times. 
 But Dozy, whom Dr. Lane-Poole cites in support of his rendering, 
 is altogether against it : q. v. 
 
IN TABARI 39 
 
 Dr. Lane-Poole refers to Tabari's statement (or 
 rather tradition) that ' when the Arabs reached 'Ain 
 Shams, the rule was between the Copts and the 
 Nubians', 1 and contends that it is unintelligible: 
 whereas if it be rendered * between the Copts and the 
 garrisons ', and if the garrisons are identified with 
 the Romans, then all is lucid. 
 
 Now in the first place I see no difficulty whatever 
 in accepting the obvious sense, ' between the Copts 
 and the Nubians.' One has only to remember that 
 politically Nubia at this time was a powerful and 
 populous kingdom under its own rulers and practi- 
 cally independent of the Roman dominion : while 
 geographically it was conterminous and continuous 
 with Egypt and formed an essential part of the 
 Nile country, with undefined frontiers, or frontiers 
 defined only at a single frontier post, Syene. 
 Nubia even to-day is called the Egyptian Sudan, 
 and what is more likely than that it was pictured in 
 the mind of the early Arab historians as part of 
 Egypt ? Indeed, that Tabari so looked upon Nubia 
 is absolutely proved by his own language in this very 
 account of the conquest of Egypt ; for he says later 
 * When the Muslims had conquered Egypt, they sent 
 an expedition against Egyptian Nubia.' * This corre- 
 sponds to our phrase the Egyptian Sudan. Clearly 
 to Tabari then as to us Nubia formed part of Egypt : 
 and he or his informant might say with perfect 
 accuracy that the rule in Egypt was divided between 
 the Egyptians and the Nubians. 3 
 
 1 See Trad. E, p. 12 supra. 
 
 2 P- 2 593- See Trad. G, p. 14 supra. 
 
 3 There is abundant evidence to show that in Roman times even 
 
40 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 It may be asked, were the relations between Nubia 
 and Egypt proper at this time such as to justify the 
 expression ? Upon this point Dr. Lane-Poole makes 
 a most astounding statement. ' We read ', he says, 
 1 nothing in history about Nubian influence or Nubian 
 settlements in Egypt at least since the Ethiopian 
 dynasty of thirteen hundred years before.' 1 Ali- 
 quando bonus dormitat Homerus ; but of all the 
 extraordinary statements ever made by a scholar 
 and historian surely this is one of the strangest and 
 the farthest from the truth. 
 
 In making it Dr. Lane-Poole apparently is think- 
 ing of the Meroitic dynasty of about 750 B.C., when 
 Nubia was the centre of a great empire, in which 
 Egypt was a mere province. But then and through 
 a long series of reigns * the culture and religion of 
 the royal family and of the priests was derived from 
 Egypt'. 2 The Meroitic era proper began in the 
 third century B.C., when the king Ergamenes 
 threw off the bondage of the Egyptian religion 
 and adopted Hellenic culture, as Diodorus relates. 
 Friendly relations with the Ptolemies generally pre- 
 vailed, and we read of Blemmyes or Nubians born 
 in Egypt and holding much the same position as 
 Greeks born in Egypt. 3 ' One of the last acts of 
 Cleopatra was to send Caesarion and her two 
 
 the Thebaid was constantly distinguished from Egypt, and that 
 Egypt was described as divided into three provinces, called Egypt 
 proper, the Thebaid, and Libya. See Accad. dei Lincei, Rendiconti, 
 1903, p. 315, and the classical authorities there quoted. 
 
 1 P.R.LA.,?. 236. 
 
 2 Oxford Excavations in Nubia : Catalogue of Exhibition of 
 Antiquities, pp. i, 2 (Oxford, Holy well Press, 1911). 
 
 8 Karanog, the Romano-Nubian Cemetery, by C. Leonard 
 
IN TABARI 41 
 
 children by Antony down to the south in the hope 
 that in Aethiopia they would find shelter.' x 
 
 But we are concerned mainly with the Roman 
 empire in Egypt. Has Dr. Lane-Poole never heard 
 of Cornelius Gallus at Philae in 29 B. c. ? of Queen 
 Candace's expedition to Elephantine ? of Gaius 
 Petronius's victories in Nubia and annexation as 
 far as Primis or Kasr Ibrim ? About A. D. 250 the 
 Blemmyes invaded Egypt and were not driven back 
 till A. D. 261 by Julius Aemilianus. They soon 
 returned, and actually occupied Coptos and Ptolemais 
 in the Thebaid by a settlement which lasted till 
 their expulsion by Probus in A.D. 276. A few years 
 later Diocletian had the sense to abandon the country 
 south of Syene, and at the same time he transferred 
 the troublesome Nobatae and Noubae from the oasis 
 of Khargah to Nubia, and agreed to pay tribute to 
 both the Blemmyes and the Nobatae. Peace was 
 thus secured for a long time ; but in the days of 
 Constantine raids as far north as Sabenna are men- 
 tioned. In the fourth century the edict of Theodosius 
 united Nobatae and Blemmyes against the Shenouti 
 and the Coptic Christians of Upper Egypt ; and from 
 this time onwards they are constantly found raiding 
 Upper Egypt and the Thebaid 2 and harrying the 
 Christians ; while in the middle of the fifth century 
 ' the Blemmyes were now more than raiders ; they 
 were definitely settled in the Thebaid and assumed 
 
 Woolley and D. Randall-Maclver, text, p. 88 (University Museum, 
 Philadelphia, 1910), and references to the Rylands Papyri there 
 quoted. 1 Karanog, p. 85. 
 
 2 See Egyptian Exploration Fund Report, 1 903-4 : Christian 
 Egypt, P- 8 1. The MS. of Shenouti in the Cairo Museum (8006 
 in Crum's Catalogue) shows that these invasions were frequent. 
 
42 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 in a measure its civil government ; the Roman 
 troops that had garrisoned the frontier were prisoners 
 in their hands, and Ptolemais seems to have been 
 the regular base from which their forces terrorized 
 the country to the north '.* Maximinus crushed these 
 Nubians in A. 0.453 and concluded a peace which 
 lasted more or less till the time of Justinian ; but an 
 extant letter, dated about A.D. 540, to John, Prefect 
 of the East, from a landholder in Upper Egypt com- 
 plains of two invasions by the Blemmyes in three 
 years. Then followed the well-known missions of 
 Justinian and Theodora which evangelized the No- 
 batae, whose king Silko warred against the Blemmyes 
 and destroyed them. But Christianity did not change 
 the habits of the Nubians. About A.D. 580 Aristo- 
 machus was sent by Tiberius II to chastise the 
 Nubians ; 2 and in the time of the emperor Maurice 
 we find either Nubian troops or troops from Nubia 
 employed in Egypt proper. 3 
 
 So all through the Roman dominion the relations 
 of Egypt and Nubia were relations of continual 
 hostility, of war and plunder, of invasion and counter- 
 invasion. 4 And the Muslims in their turn found that 
 the conquest of Nubia did not follow upon the con- 
 
 1 Karanog, p. 96. 
 
 2 John of Nikiou, p. 525 (Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, &c., 
 t. xxiv, Paris, 1883). 3 Id., p. 531. 
 
 4 See J. Leipoldt's article written as preface to Rudolph Haupt's 
 Katalog 5 (Aegyptologie, &c.), pp. viii, ix (Halle a. S., 1905) : 
 ' Am allerhasslichsten benahmen sich aber die reichen Herren, wenn 
 ein Einfall der Egoosh (Nubier) drohte. In diesen Zeiten hochster 
 Gefahr pflegten alle nordwarts zu fliehen . . . Die agyptische 
 Regierung schon im vierten und funften Jahrhundert recht machtlos 
 war : nicht einmal ihre Soldaten hatte sie in der Gewalt, und die 
 Verhinderung von Nubiereinf alien gelang ihr nur selten.' 
 
IN TABARI 43 
 
 quest of Egypt ; for Tabarl himself relates the failure 
 of the expedition which 'Amr made against Nubia, as 
 soon as Egypt was subjugated. 
 
 I claim therefore to have shown that, during 
 the whole of the thirteen hundred years in which 
 Dr. Lane-Poole alleges that Nubian influence and 
 Nubian settlements were unknown in Egypt, the tide 
 of war had rolled over the land between Nubia and 
 Egypt, ebbing and flowing at irregular intervals 
 but with ceaseless recurrence ; that Nubia was a 
 thorn in the side of the Romans all through their 
 dominion in Egypt, as it was a thorn in the side of 
 the Muslims long after they had conquered Egypt ; 
 and that, so far from Nubian settlements being un- 
 known in Egypt, it had been the regular policy and 
 practice of the Nubians to crown a successful inva- 
 sion by a settled occupation in Upper Egypt. It 
 was therefore perfectly natural that at the time of 
 the Arab invasion the people of Misr should bargain 
 for protection against Nubian settlements. 
 
 If this is not enough to prove that Nub in the 
 treaty has its ordinary sense of Nubians, let us con- 
 sider the consequences of adopting Dr. Lane-Poole's 
 rendering garrisons. I have already taken the 
 broad ground that, as the Roman Empire had been 
 established in Egypt for at least seven hundred years, 
 it is a mistake to speak of Egypt in A.D. 640 as 
 a country held by alien Roman ' garrisons ' and an 
 alien ' Roman army of occupation '. Such phrases 
 fly in the face of history. 1 But further : if 'Amr 
 
 1 The Roman army in Egypt was largely recruited from the 
 native inhabitants : see The Garrison of Egypt under the Roman 
 Empire, by Mr. Cheeseman in Karanog, pp. 106-14. 
 
44 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 meant garrisons, why did not he use the common 
 Arabic word for garrison, ^^^ ? Again, if the 
 Romans in Egypt are described as garrisons in the 
 Treaty of Misr, why are they not so described, and 
 why is the term Nub not used, in the Treaty of 
 Jerusalem ? And if the term garrisons in the Treaty 
 of Misr is equivalent to Romans, why does that 
 treaty speak of ' Romans and garrisons ', thus 
 making a distinction between them ? But the climax 
 of absurdity is reached when we come to the last 
 clause (i i) in the treaty, which provides that the 
 ' garrisons ' are to furnish so many head of cattle or 
 sheep * and so many horses, and are to receive in 
 return full freedom for trade to and from Egypt. 
 What can this mean if the ' garrisons ' are the 
 Romans ? 
 
 Dr. Lane-Poole sees the difficulty. ' The last 
 clause relating to the garrisons ', he remarks, * is not 
 very intelligible,' and he proceeds to quote what he 
 calls Weil's translation as follows : ' And (it is bind- 
 ing) on the garrisons who consent (to this treaty) 
 that they shall help the Muslims with so many men 
 and so many horses that they (the Nub] be not 
 hindered from trade, coming or going/ Notice that 
 Dr. Lane-Poole takes upon himself to substitute 
 ' garrisons ' for Weil's * Nubians ', and yet does not 
 hesitate to change that inconvenient word back to 
 ' Nub ' or Nubians in his own gloss explaining the 
 pronoun ' they ' ! We may correct this procedure, 
 and see what results. The clause will then run, 
 according to the garrisons theory, as follows : * The 
 
 1 This rendering is more probably correct than ' head of men ', 
 i. e. soldiers. 
 
IN TABARI 45 
 
 garrisons who come under this treaty are bound to 
 furnish so many head (of cattle or men) and so many 
 horses, so that the garrisons may trade freely, 
 coming and going' which is very like nonsense. 
 Dr. Lane-Poole argues that 'the clause may be 
 understood to provide for a limited escort of friendly 
 Romans to protect the caravans trading between 
 Egypt and Syria ; but such a provision appears 
 extremely improbable'. Not only improbable, but 
 impossible : it is the reductio ad absurdum of the 
 garrisons theory. 
 
 But if, as I contend, Nub means Nubians, then it 
 is the Nubians in Egypt who have to furnish cattle 
 and horses (possibly a contingent of horse and foot) 
 and who are to be protected in their trade across 
 the desert to Nubia. The trade in ivory and other 
 products of the Sudan was much the same then as 
 now, and as much exposed to danger from Beduin 
 and brigands. 1 The Arabs too were strangers to 
 the country, and they may have foreseen the require- 
 ment of a corps of local guides to aid in patrolling 
 the southern and western deserts. So interpreted 
 therefore the provision in the treaty is both intel- 
 ligible and natural. Last but not least, the other 
 Muslim historians who quote or comment on the 
 
 1 Juvenal, for example, mentions the ivory trade : ' Dentibus ex 
 illis quos mittit porta Syenes.' See also England in the Sudan, by 
 Yakub Pasha Artm, p. 8 (Macmillan, 1911): 'All these temples 
 and fortresses, whose ruins alone remain, could not have been 
 constructed in deserts such as we see to-day. There must have 
 existed from remotest times a considerable trade, at least a transport 
 trade, between the Sudan and Egypt. Certain it is that there were 
 wars both of a defensive and of an aggressive nature from at least 
 the time of the twelfth dynasty.' 
 
46 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 treaty never doubt for a moment that Nub means 
 Nubians. Thus Ibn al Athir says, ' In this treaty 
 even the Romans and Nubians inhabiting Egypt 
 were included as forming part of the population of 
 the country.' * 
 
 So much for the strange theory of the ' garri- 
 sons '. 
 
 It remains to notice one or two other points in 
 the treaty. Clause 2 seems to fix the total amount 
 of poll-tax, ' provided that the people of Misr accept 
 the treaty and the river reaches its full level/ at 
 50,000,000 but the coin is not specified. I can 
 hardly think Dr. Lane-Poole correct in taking this 
 as dirhems. The evidence of practically all the Arab 
 writers agrees that the tax was stated in dinars 
 two dinars a head, old men, women, and children 
 being excluded. Clearly, however, 50,000,000 dinars 
 cannot have been intended : that would imply 
 25,000,000 able-bodied men in the population, which 
 is absurd. But if 5,000,000 be substituted for 
 50,000,000 by a very slight change in the text 
 (s-u**^. for OAAU^L), that would imply a taxable 
 population of 2,500,000, which might be a fair rough 
 estimate of numbers for the whole of Egypt at the 
 time of the treaty. But whichever way the total 
 of tribute be taken (dirhems or dinars), a great 
 difficulty arises : because it is certain that any such 
 total must refer not to a section but to the whole 
 population of Egypt. In other words, ' the people 
 of Misr' in this clause must mean, not the people 
 of the city of Misr, but the people of Egypt. Yet 
 
 1 Ibn al Athir, Chronic on quod perfectissimum inscribitur, ed. 
 C. J. Tornberg, Leyden, 1868-74, p. 441. 
 
IN TABARI 47 
 
 we have seen that it was the people of the city who 
 were parties to the treaty ; and ^-*a/o <J^>| cannot 
 mean two different things in the same document. 
 The only solution is to regard the numeral 
 50,000,000 (or 5,000,000) as a marginal gloss which 
 has crept into the text. This solution commends 
 itself the more as there is no total of poll-tax 
 specified in the Treaty of Jerusalem. Caetani 
 (p. 309) says that the omission of any capitation 
 tax is one of the points in favour of the treaty, 
 because under Omar the two dinars per head was 
 not known only a lump sum being fixed. It 
 also seems a priori most unlikely that the Arab 
 commander would bind himself to accept an off-hand 
 estimate furnished by the Romans, who would have 
 every motive for reducing the total. It must further 
 be remembered that Tabari's words immediately 
 following the treaty run : * So the people of Misr, 
 all of them, entered into those covenants and accepted 
 the treaty, and the horses were collected/ It is quite 
 certain that the whole population of Egypt did not 
 enter upon this treaty. Moreover, the collection of 
 horses is recorded as an incident in close connexion 
 with the acceptation of the treaty ; and whether it 
 refers to horses which the Nubians had to furnish, 
 or, as seems more probable, to horses at once avail- 
 able and supplied by the people of the city, it shows 
 the limited scope of the treaty at the moment. It 
 obviously cannot refer to a collection of horses 
 from all quarters of Egypt : for it is absolutely 
 beyond question that, at the time when the Treaty 
 of Misr was concluded, the Muslims had effected 
 next to nothing in Upper Egypt, while the whole 
 
48 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 of the Delta was still Roman and could not be 
 described as coming under the treaty. Tabari's 
 own words 1 make doubt on this point impossible, 
 apart from the overwhelming evidence of other 
 Arab writers and of John of Nikiou : and Dr. Lane- 
 Poole virtually agrees. 2 Everything therefore seems 
 to support the theory that the * 50,000,000', which 
 hangs very loosely on the text, is a gloss which 
 should be removed. 
 
 One other point. The position of cl. 1 1 is curious 
 and obviously suggests some kind of afterthought. 
 Yet if this provision were a mere interpolation by 
 a later writer, why should it be placed between the 
 warranty clause and the attestation clause ? It 
 would have been more natural, and just as easy, 
 for an interpolator to insert his fictitious addition 
 somewhere in the body of the treaty. Indeed it 
 might be argued, that the abnormal position of the 
 clause is actually a point in its favour : though the 
 same cannot be said of its obscurity. 
 
 Leaving, however, all criticism of the text, one may 
 now sum up the conclusions reached about the treaty. 
 It was a treaty made not with the Copts but with 
 the Romans : it concerned primarily the population 
 of the city of Misr, whom it ruled out as belli- 
 gerents and brought under tribute, giving in return 
 protection and religious liberty : it secured to the 
 Arabs possession of the largest city in Egypt after 
 Alexandria : it released their forces for the campaign 
 
 1 See Tradition B, p. 9 supra. 
 
 2 P. R.I. A., p. 235 : 'At the time of the treaty only a small 
 part of the country was subdued, and most of the country was in 
 Roman hands.' 
 
IN TABARl 49 
 
 in the Delta : and it gave to the still unconquered 
 towns and provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt 
 a model of the conditions under which the Muslims 
 were ready to grant peace together with security for 
 life, property, and religion. 
 
 IV. The Authenticity of the Treaty. 
 
 UP to this point I have assumed the genuineness 
 of the treaty, with some reserve, in order to deal 
 with Dr. Lane-Poole's arguments as founded on 
 that assumption. But while Dr. Lane-Poole regards 
 the treaty as textually accurate and unquestionably 
 authentic, it must not be concealed that other 
 oriental scholars regard it as for the most part 
 spurious. Contrast the almost sacrosanct regard in 
 which Dr. Lane-Poole holds the document with what 
 Wellhausen says of the whole Saifian traditions. 1 
 Indeed, Wellhausen in his brief study of the 
 conquest, written before my work and Dr. Lane- 
 Poole's article, does not directly mention this treaty ; 
 while Caetani, the latest, fullest, and most searching 
 writer on the subject, definitely decides that both 
 the Treaty of Jerusalem and the Treaty of Misr are 
 in the main apocryphal. 2 
 
 The truth probably lies somewhat short of this 
 extreme opinion. But one thing is certain : either 
 the Treaty of Misr is spurious or its historical setting 
 is wrong. It is absolutely impossible that the treaty 
 as it stands can have been concluded by Al Mukaukis 
 upon the surrender of Babylon and by him referred 
 
 1 Skizzen und Vorarbeitcn, vi. 94. See also his general remarks 
 on the early Mohammedan writings in iv. of the same series. 
 a Caetani, pp. 300, 306-8. 
 
 1469 D 
 
50 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 to Heraclius. Every modern authority agrees that 
 John of Nikiou's evidence upon the date of the 
 surrender is final. That date is 9 April, 641, and 
 at that date Al Mukaukis was not in Egypt and 
 Heraclius was dead. 
 
 If, therefore, the treaty is genuine, it must have 
 got into a wrong context. For in its present form 
 it cannot possibly be identified with the Treaty of 
 Alexandria, which John of Nikiou records : and 
 alternatively, if it can be identified as a confused 
 reminiscence of that treaty, the text cannot be 
 regarded as authentic. To what then could it relate, 
 if genuine ? John of Nikiou shows clearly that the 
 capture of the city of Misr was anterior to the fall 
 of Babylon, though all details of that capture are 
 lost with the lost chapter of which the heading alone 
 remains. Baladhuri also makes it clear that in the 
 conquest of Egypt there were two treaties, 1 one 
 merely local and temporary, the other marking the 
 final triumph of the Arabs and settling the terms for 
 the surrender of the country by the Romans. If 
 Tabari's treaty can be identified with the minor 
 treaty recorded by Baladhuri, it would not run counter 
 to anything in John of Nikiou, and in spite of some 
 
 1 Caetani,p. 2 51, where Baladhuri is quoted, and Caetani comments 
 as follows : ' In questa tradizione si osservino due cose : in primo 
 luogo che s'ignora il nome di al Muqawqis e che lo si chiama il 
 signore di Alyunah senz' altre specificazioni. Si parla poi di due 
 trattati ben distinti, e qui noi scorgiamo memoria dei due trattati, 
 1'uno concluso alia presa di Babilonia con il signore della fortezza 
 (Sahib Alyunah), e 1'altro non specificato ulteriormente, ma senza 
 dubbio quello di Alessandria, stipulate da Giro.' 
 
 The term A I Yunah comes of course from Bab-al-yun (Gate of 
 Al Yun), the form of Babylon which Arab writers got from a 
 mistaken etymology. 
 
IN TABARI 51 
 
 difficulties might claim at least a measure of authen- 
 ticity. 
 
 But the conclusions of Caetani are too important 
 to pass over lightly. Dr. Lane-Poole, he remarks, 1 
 does not avail himself of the precious information of 
 Baladhuri : he ignores Wellhausen's criticisms and 
 he regards all the authorities as of equal value. 
 We find Saif displaying very imperfect knowledge 
 of events in Egypt as in Syria, and arbitrarily filling 
 the gaps with elements in part only good and flung 
 together in wild disorder. The treaty, therefore, 
 appears in bad company, and we may suspect that 
 the text of the treaty is as disordered as the text of 
 the narrative. The last article, no. n, is a rock on 
 which the theory of absolute authenticity must split. 
 Nubians in the treaty are an anachronism, and this 
 article must be an interpolation taken from a 
 subsequent treaty between Arabs and Nubians after 
 the conquest of Upper Egypt. * Hence the treaty', 
 continues Caetani, * is not the authentic text of the 
 Treaty of Misr, but a text in which authorities of 
 the Persian school are mingled with elements, in 
 part ancient and perhaps contemporary with the 
 conquest, of different provenance.' He proceeds to 
 argue that article 2 cannot be of the time of the 
 conquest : apart, however, from articles 2 and 1 1 
 the treaty has some genuine character. Moreover, 
 the omission of the amount of the poll-tax per head 
 is against it : but while some of the conditions 
 recall those of the treaty of Alexandria as given 
 by John of Nikiou, the main terms for the surrender 
 of Egypt have little or nothing in common. 
 1 Id., p. 308. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 Finally he concludes that the Treaty of Jerusalem 
 and Treaty of Misr are both mainly apocryphal, 
 though parts may be taken from ancient and 
 authentic documents. In both we have to note the 
 intermixture of authentic conditions with apocryphal 
 and with others which, being common to all treaties, 
 have no special value. ' Generally these two treaties 
 are artificial compositions of a later age with elements 
 of various origin and diverse value. The historian 
 must not ignore them, but must not found upon 
 their slender support any important conclusion/ 1 
 
 Such is Caetani's opinion. I do not agree with 
 his sweeping judgement, nor does it seem founded 
 so much upon argument as upon assertion. The 
 articles 2 and n, which are cited in condemnation 
 of the Treaty of Misr as anachronistic, I have 
 already shown above to be justified historically; 
 and though I agree that the sum total of the poll-tax 
 given in the treaty must be wrong, no great stress 
 can be laid upon an error in arithmetic in Arab 
 documents. It seems to me also that both the 
 points of agreement and the points of difference in 
 the two treaties (Jerusalem and Misr) suggest a 
 higher measure of authenticity in the text than 
 Caetani is disposed to admit, although I fully concur 
 with him in thinking the whole narrative in Tabari, 
 or in the Saifian tradition, hopelessly disordered. 
 
 Beyond that, sure ground does not lie. Wellhausen 
 accuses Saif of filling the gaps in his narrative 
 with idle romancing (Kannegiesserei) and calls his 
 narrative legendary. But the story of Zubair's 
 escalade, for example, which Caetani would place 
 1 Caetani, p. 310. 
 
IN TABARl 53 
 
 in that category, seems well enough attested, though 
 the setting is doubtful. On the whole I am unable 
 to accept Caetani's criticisms except in so far as 
 I have here admitted their justice, or to base upon 
 them any subversive modifications of the general 
 narrative of events as set out in my eighteenth 
 chapter of the Arab Conquest of Egypt. 
 
 But while I am disposed to think the treaty pos- 
 sibly in its main outline authentic, I confess that its 
 exact position in the history is exceedingly difficult 
 to determine. I have already shown that Tabari 
 intended beyond all question to associate the treaty 
 with the surrender of Babylon, i.e. Kasr ash ShanVa: 
 Baladhurl seems also to associate his first treaty 
 with the surrender of Babylon or Kasr ash Sham'a. 
 It is reasonable to suppose, and unreasonable to 
 doubt, that these two treaties refer to the same 
 event. Either then the Treaty of Misr must be 
 regarded as that made in October at the time 
 of high Nile the abortive treaty which I have 
 described in the Arab Conquest^ or it must be 
 taken as relating to the capitulation of the city of 
 Misr, as opposed to that of the fortress of Babylon 
 the capitulation which is barely recorded in a 
 chapter-heading by John of Nikiou, but of which 
 the whole description and detail are lost. The 
 balance of evidence is perhaps in favour of the 
 latter hypothesis : but no historian has yet issued 
 from that inextricable labyrinth which the Arab 
 writers have built around the central facts of the 
 conquest with a key to its mysteries. 
 
 1 p. 262. 
 
54 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 V. The Identity of A I Mukaukis. 
 
 IN dealing above with the parties to the treaty 
 I have mentioned Al Mukaukis many times without 
 diverting the argument to discuss the question of 
 his identity. But Dr. Lane-Poole challenges my 
 identification of him with Cyrus, the imperial 
 patriarch and viceroy, and it is time to take up the 
 challenge. Though most competent scholars both 
 in Europe and in Egypt have accepted my theory 
 at least in part, I have no wish to take shelter under 
 their authority, or to regard it as outweighing 
 Dr. Lane-Poole's criticisms : which I now proceed 
 to examine. 
 
 After citing my evidence on the Coptic side 
 (Severus, the Synaxarium, the Life of Samuel of 
 Kalamun) Dr. Lane-Poole says : 
 
 ' Supposing these translations to be accurate, and 
 supposing the MSS., which are chiefly late, to be 
 faithful transcripts of early authoritative documents 
 a matter which I am not qualified to decide 
 these extracts taken together show that Cyrus and 
 the Mukaukis were one and the same person in the 
 opinion of the writers. This can hardly be contested. 
 The only question is whether the writers were 
 authoritative/ J * The whole question turns on the 
 relative credibility of two or three Coptic authorities 
 and the whole series of Arabic historians. 2 If we 
 had nothing but these Coptic and Ethiopic data to 
 
 1 P. R.I. A., p. 250. 3 Id., p. 252. 
 
IN TABARI 55 
 
 go upon, the identification might perhaps be taken 
 as proved. But when we look at the long series of 
 Arabic writers, not only those who survive, but 
 many who are cited by survivors but whose original 
 writings are lost, and when we fail to find the slight- 
 est hint that any one of them suspected Al Mukaukis 
 and Cyrus to be the same person, I confess that 
 their evidence, negative as it is, seems to me over- 
 whelming. How is it that not one of them says that 
 Al Mukaukis was a priest, much less an archbishop ? 
 Why do they give him the name of George, son of 
 Mina, or son of Kurkub, if his real name was Cyrus ? l 
 Why does Abu Salih, who was a Christian, and 
 wrote about A. D. 1200, state that Heraclius placed 
 the government of Egypt under " George, the son of 
 Mina, Al Mukaukis ", and also cite the book of 
 Janah for the fact that " the bishop of the Romans 
 at Misr and Alexandria was named Cyrus " ? How 
 is it that not a single historian of Egypt, Muslim or 
 Christian, has said in so many words " Al Mukaukis 
 was a title or nickname given to the patriarch 
 Cyrus " ? ' 2 
 
 I have set out these extracts at some length 
 because I am anxious to present Dr. Lane-Poole's 
 argument fairly and fully. Briefly, then, he seeks 
 to discredit the very positive evidence from Coptic 
 sources, and he sets against it the negative results 
 from Arabic sources the silence and the confusion 
 on the subject among Arabic historians. 
 
 Now first of all as to the Arabic writers. Of 
 course this negative argument has a good deal of 
 
 1 (jMOy*. George, and \j*)j*? Cyrus are not very unlike. 
 
 2 Id., p. 253. 
 
5 6 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 plausibility about it, but it does not prove much 
 more than that among Arabic historians there exists 
 on the question the greatest uncertainty and perplex- 
 ity, and in their statements they show the greatest 
 inconsistency : the one is the result of the other. 
 But if there is anything certain, it is that the Arab 
 writers caught the name Al Mukaukis by hearsay or 
 tradition one from another without understanding it ; 
 that the name prevailed among them to the exclu- 
 sion, or the confusion, of the personal name of the 
 official to whom it belonged ; and that the name was 
 a vague title of non-Arabic origin denoting the ruler 
 of Egypt, They call the ruler of Egypt in the time 
 of Mohammed Al Mukaukis, and they call the ruler 
 of Egypt at the time of the conquest Al Mukaukis. 
 It matters little for my argument whether the name 
 was first used by the Arabs in connexion with 
 Mohammed's mission and applied by analogy to the 
 governor-general at the time of the conquest; or 
 whether (as I think) it was first heard at the time of 
 the conquest and applied by error to the governor- 
 general who received Mohammed's mission. In 
 either case the term denoted the viceroy of the 
 Roman emperor or the governor-general in Egypt. 
 Seeing the consequences which would flow from an 
 admission of this fact, Dr. Lane-Poole tries to escape 
 them in the following manner : 
 
 * Such is Dr. Butler's positive evidence. The co- 
 incidences upon which he also relies are the statements 
 on the one hand that Cyrus, on the other that Al 
 Mukaukis, was governor of Egypt under Heraclius ; 
 the statements of the Greek historians and John of 
 Nikiou that Cyrus made peace with the Arabs, and 
 
IN TABARI 57 
 
 those of the Arabic historians that Al Mukaukis 
 made peace with them. But these coincidences may 
 be explained by the hypothesis that Al Mukaukis 
 was the sub-governor who made the peace, and 
 Cyrus the patriarch and supreme governor who 
 accepted his subordinate's arrangement and reported 
 it to the emperor/ * 
 
 In order, therefore, to avoid the identification of 
 Al Mukaukis with Cyrus, Dr. Lane-Poole has to 
 identify him, not with the governor-general of 
 Egypt, but with some sub-governor : and this 
 hypothesis he further develops to the conclusion 
 that ' So far as the Arabic evidence goes, except for 
 his name, Al Mukaukis may have been Theodore', 
 i. e. the military governor at Alexandria. Clearly 
 if the Mukaukis's name was Theodore, he was not 
 ' George, son of Mina ' : but the fact is that * George, 
 son of Mma' fits no person and fits no theory in 
 this strange eventful chronicle, and must be regarded 
 as erroneous. But let us examine the Arabic 
 writers' evidence, and see in what language they 
 describe Al Mukaukis. Now dealing first with 
 Tabari, it cannot be denied that he distinguishes in 
 one tradition 2 between Al Mukaukis and the katholi- 
 kos of Misr. The question is what the latter phrase 
 means. The term katholikos is not and never was 
 a term rightly applicable to any church dignitary in 
 Egypt. It is an Armenian, or Syrian, or Nestorian 
 term, made familiar to Tabari in Tabaristan or in 
 Baghdad, and misapplied to Egypt. No doubt 
 it means ' metropolitan ', but it does not necessarily 
 
 1 P. R.I. A., p. 252. 
 
 2 See Tradition D supra, p. u. 
 
5 8 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 mean 'patriarch'^ Further, we have seen that 
 Misr has the double sense of Egypt and the city of 
 Misr. It follows that the phrase katholikos of 
 Misr, for which Dr. Lane-Poole and others usually 
 give the impossible rendering patriarch of Egypt, 
 may mean nothing more or less than metropolitan 
 of the city of Misr. That there was a metropolitan 
 of Misr distinct from the patriarch is probable : for 
 it is known that there was a bishop of Misr, and the 
 title frequently occurs in Coptic history. 2 There 
 was also a bishop of Babylon, or * bishop of the 
 Castle of Babylon ', 3 a bishop of Memphis, a bishop 
 of Hulwan ; and the bishop of Misr doubtless had 
 precedence over all bishops in the locality. More- 
 over, the title of metropolitan was given to the 
 bishop of Damietta ; and it is difficult to conceive 
 that the bishop of Misr the capital city after 
 Alexandria was of less importance and lower 
 dignity, as would be the case, if he had not the rank 
 of metropolitan. I may add that I have spoken of 
 patriarch of Egypt as an impossible rendering, 
 because it is an impossible title. The patriarch 
 was patriarch of Alexandria : that was the invariable 
 title. Such a title as patriarch of Misr or patriarch 
 of Egypt is absolutely unknown, and to use it is as 
 
 1 Al BirunI, speaking of the melkite Syrian Christians, defines 
 Katholikos thus : Arabic Jdthallk. The residence of the katholikos 
 of the Melkites in Muslim countries is Baghdad. He is under the 
 patriarch of Antioch (ed. C. E. Sachau, London, 1879, pp. 283-4). 
 So the katholikos of the Armenian Church was appointed originally 
 from Caesarea, and had not even the specific rank of metropolitan. 
 To-day there are four katholikoi in Armenia. 
 
 2 See for example, Abu Salih, pp. 92, 121, 138. 
 8 Arab Conquest, p. 173. 
 
IN TABARI 59 
 
 absurd as to speak of the archbishop of England. 
 On the other hand, the title metropolitan of Misr 
 does not rest on mere conjecture. I have found it 
 actually used about A.D. 750, when one Theodore is 
 described as the metropolitan bishop of Misr. 1 
 
 If this explanation is adopted, all difficulty arising 
 from the distinction between the katholikos and Al 
 Mukaukis vanishes : they were two different persons, 
 and no one has ever contended that the bishop of 
 Misr was Al Mukaukis. And the difficulty about 
 the name Abu Maryam also vanishes. I would no 
 longer say that the name is impossible an erroneous 
 assertion in which Dr. Lane-Poole follows me : 2 all 
 I would say is that it is doubtful in this context. I 
 would point out what has not been noticed before, 
 I think that the same name is given to the 
 Christian pervert at Balhib in Tabarl's own story 
 of the surrender of Alexandria 'Abdallah 'Abd ar 
 Rahman Abu Maryam, where the forenames are 
 clearly the Islamic additions. 3 The name therefore 
 is possible : but the fact that we have Abu Maryam 
 the metropolitan, Abu Maryam the bishop, and 
 again Abu Maryam the pervert, unquestionably 
 establishes a confusion which renders the whole of 
 this nomenclature very uncertain. But if it was the 
 metropolitan of Misr and another bishop who met 
 'Amr, there is nothing inconsistent with my theory 
 in Tabarfs statement that they were sent by Al 
 Mukaukis and returned to him : indeed the story 
 then fits together admirably. 4 
 
 ^^o u_ai~l u-yj/d! yj-^li in Hist. Pat. (Pair. Orient, t. v.fasc. i), 
 p. 106. 
 
 2 P.R.I. A., p. 243. 3 See Trad. B, p. 10, supra. 
 
 4 I should say that I have frankly abandoned the explanation of 
 
60 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 Before quitting Tabari, however, I must point out 
 a discrepancy in his evidence. For whereas in the 
 one tradition he says that when 'Amr, reinforced by 
 Zubair, met Abu Maryam and Abu Maryam, they 
 fought with him ; l in the other he says * When ' Amr 
 and Al Mukaukis met at 'Ain Shams, their armies 
 began to fight '. 2 That these two statements refer 
 to one and the same incident, does not in my opinion 
 admit of reasonable doubt. It is one more illus- 
 tration of the necessity of considering the various 
 traditions in Tabari in their isolation as well as in 
 their union. But if the incident is the same, and if 
 one tradition alleges that it was the katholikos of 
 Misr, while another alleges that it was Al Mukaukis, 
 whose meeting with 'Amr was followed by the battle 
 at 'Ain Shams, or the battle of Heliopolis, then it 
 follows that the Mukaukis may be identified with the 
 katholikos of Misr, and the katholikos of Misr may 
 be the metropolitan of Egypt, or in other words the 
 Patriarch Cyrus. In that case, however, the tradi- 
 tion which separates Cyrus from Al Mukaukis must 
 be so far mistaken. And it must be remembered that 
 equal authority cannot attach to inconsistent tradi- 
 tions. One must choose between them on a balance 
 of evidence. 
 
 the name Abu Maryam which I gave in the Arab Conquest (p. 513). 
 It cannot be identified with the name Benjamin. Historically it is 
 certain that Benjamin was in retreat in the desert till after the 
 Muslim power was established in Egypt : and philologically I accept 
 Caetani's objection that the names Ibn Ydmm and Maryam were 
 both so well known to the Arabs that confusion between them is 
 very improbable. I may add that the very name Abu Maryam is 
 found, in the Aphrodito papyri (MS. 1448, Brit. Mus. Catalogue), 
 dating from about A.D. 700. 
 
 1 p. 2584. 2 p. 2592. 
 
IN TABARI 61 
 
 Tabari's testimony, however, rightly interpreted, 
 not only harmonizes rather than clashes with my 
 theory, but actually supports it. I may add that 
 there is not a word in his whole story suggesting or 
 justifying the identification of Al Mukaukis with any 
 subordinate officer of the empire whatever. 
 
 Let us now see whether other Arabic historians 
 bear out Dr. Lane-Poole's contention. There is an 
 important passage in Ibn 'Abd al Hakam (c. A.D. 850) 
 which, so far as I know, has not been noticed in this 
 connexion : 
 
 Which means that Heraclius, the Roman emperor, 
 deputed Al Mukaukis as viceroy over Egypt with 
 full military power and with control of the revenue 
 or taxes. What can such a position mean but one 
 of supreme authority ? In naming Al Mukaukis as 
 controller of the revenue Ibn Abd al Hakam is 
 not only supported by Eutychius 2 (A. D. 876-939) 
 among Arabic writers, but he is in most remarkable 
 agreement with the seventh-century Coptic docu- 
 ment, 3 which in recounting the visit of nR^ir^ioc 
 
 (i. e. the Mukaukis, the 
 
 1 This is in the part published by Karle, p. 55 of the Arabic 
 text (Gottingen, 1856, 4to). 
 
 a For quotation and reference see below, p. 80. 
 
 s MSS. Copt., Clar. Press, p. 5, published in Ame'lineau's Vie 
 de Samuel de Kalamim. See Arab Conquest, p. 518 ; but I did not 
 know of the passage in Ibn 'Abd al Hakam when that page was 
 written. 
 
62 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 sham archbishop), to the monastery of Kalamun 
 makes the archbishop claim the title of ( controller 
 of the revenue of the land of Egypt'. Such a 
 coincidence must carry great weight. Now this same 
 incident is also recounted in the Arabic version of 
 Coptic Synaxarium, 1 and there the person who tried 
 to make Samuel confess the Chalcedonian or melkite 
 form of belief is called definitely Al Mukaukis a 
 clear proof that TIK^-S^IOC is the Coptic original of 
 O*Ji y>dl and one MS. adds to the name Al 
 Mukaukis ' the patriarch '. The person then who 
 claimed the title of Controller of the Revenue is 
 proved by these two Coptic documents to be the 
 Mukaukis just as Ibn 'Abd al Hakam alleges, and 
 is also proved to be the melkite archbishop and 
 patriarch or Cyrus. 
 
 But there is a further striking correspondence 
 
 1 Synaxaire Arabe Jacobite, par Rene* Basset, in Patrol. Orient. 
 . iii. fasc. 3, p. 406. The authority of this Arabic version has 
 been impugned by Dr. Lane-Poole on the ground of its lateness. 
 The truth is that it embodies traditions and records from the earliest 
 times, with late additions. I may perhaps give one example proving 
 its remarkable accuracy. On p. 326 of t. i, in Basset's edition, is an 
 account of an eclipse which occurred in 958 of the era of the Martyrs 
 (29 Aug. 1241-28 Aug. 1242), and which, being on 6th October, 
 fell in 1241, and not, as Basset says, in 1242. The description of 
 the eclipse is such as to preclude any other than a total eclipse, 
 and the writer clearly depicts totality at Alexandria. When I asked 
 the astronomers to verify the statement, I was told that Oppolzer's 
 chart shows the line of totality along the north of Asia Minor, and 
 therefore far away from Alexandria. But the description of totality 
 at Alexandria was so unmistakable, that I had the matter referred 
 to Greenwich Observatory, where a rough calculation was made, 
 correcting Oppolzer, and showing the line of totality as passing 
 through Alexandria. Thus the historical accuracy of this record in 
 the Synaxarium is completely vindicated. 
 
IN TABARI 63 
 
 between Ibn 'Abd al Hakam and another quite 
 independent authority. The Arabic historian makes 
 two statements about Al Mukaukis, the one em- 
 phasizing his military, the other his fiscal authority. 
 On the fiscal side, we have clear confirmation from 
 Coptic documents ; on the military side I now give 
 a curious confirmation from a seventh- century Syriac 
 document which has not very long come to light. 
 The Chronicon Anonymum> translated and edited 
 by Guidi and published among the Chronica 
 Minora, 1 was written in the seventh century shortly 
 after the subjugation of Egypt, and it declares 
 that the Arabs were deterred at first from 
 the invasion because the frontiers of Egypt were 
 defended with a large and powerful army by the 
 patriarch of Alexandria. Such a statement would 
 sound almost incredible, if it stood alone : how 
 could an archbishop control these purely military 
 measures? But if the patriarch at this time 
 was Cyrus, as is not denied, and if Cyrus was 
 Al Mukaukis, then the assertion of the very early 
 Syriac document exactly tallies with Ibn 'Abd al 
 Hakam's description of the viceroy as clothed with 
 full military power. 
 
 So much, then, for Ibn 'Abd al Hakam. It is 
 obviously impossible to deny that he represents 
 Al Mukaukis as sent to Egypt by Heraclius with 
 
 1 Corf us Script. Hist. Orient, Scriptores Syri: Ser. iii, t. iv, p. 31 
 ' Potiti sunt Arabes tota regione Syriae et Palestinae. Aegyptum 
 quoque ingredi in animo erat, sed non valuerunt : custodiebantur 
 enim fines exercitu magno et vi, a patriarcha Alexandrino\ Guidi 
 remarks that the Chronicle as it stands may be dated with certainty 
 A.D. 670-80, though parts seem older, and that it was the work 
 of a Nestorian monk. 
 
64 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 full civil and military power ; that such a description 
 cannot conceivably apply to any subordinate official ; 
 and that the evidence of this Arabic writer is most 
 remarkably confirmed by independent Coptic and 
 Syriac documents almost or actually contemporary 
 with the conquest. 
 
 Al Baladhuri (A.D. 806-93) is not very definite 
 about Al Mukaukis. But he represents him as 
 having concluded peace with *Amr under a treaty 
 which Heraclius repudiated presumably the treaty 
 of Misr ; as subsequently in command at Alexandria 
 during the siege; and as again negotiating with 
 'Amr for the surrender of that city. There is no 
 word in this writer to support the assumption that 
 the Mukaukis was a subordinate official : indeed 
 Baladhurfs account is in close agreement with John 
 of Nikiou's account of Cyrus. 
 
 Al Y'akubl (died A.D. 873), who was not an 
 Egyptian, makes the Mukaukis conclude peace with 
 'Amr a peace which Heraclius repudiated. 
 
 Ibn al Athir (A.D. 1160-1232) seems to follow 
 Tabari; but he describes Abu Maryam, who was 
 sent by Al Mukaukis to meet 'Amr, as katholikos 
 of Memphis, clearly showing that he understood the 
 expression katholikos of Misr as referring to the 
 bishop of the city of Misr and not to the patriarch 
 of Alexandria. There is therefore nothing in- 
 consistent in Ibn al Athir's evidence with the 
 theory identifying Al Mukaukis with Cyrus. I may 
 add that bishop and archbishop were not very 
 clearly distinguished by Arab writers. Thus Abu '1 
 Mahasin, who speaks of Abu Maryam as katho- 
 likos of Misr, also speaks of Benjamin as bishop of 
 
IN TABARl 65 
 
 Alexandria. So the phrase bishop of Rome is not 
 unknown in history. But Ibn al Athir represents 
 the Mukaukis as ordering battle to be given at 
 'Ain Shams on the advice of the military tribune ; 
 as negotiating later at Alexandria ; and as making 
 peace with the Arabs. This Arabic historian then 
 in no way countenances the theory that the Mukaukis 
 could be a subordinate officer. 
 
 Yakut (A.D. 1178-1229) makes the Mukaukis the 
 author of the peace on behalf of Copts and Romans 
 and subject to the emperor's approval evidence 
 that he was in the writer's opinion viceroy of 
 Egypt. 
 
 Al Makm (A.D. 1205-73) says that Al Mukaukis 
 was 'governor of Egypt in the name of Heraclius', 
 i. e. viceroy. 
 
 Ibn Dukmak (c. A.D. 1350-1406) cites Ibn Wahb 
 as quoting Al Laith ibn S'ad as follows : ' Al 
 Mukaukis, the Roman, who was viceroy (jCLo) of 
 Egypt, made terms of peace with *Amr.' 
 
 Makrlzi (A.D. 1365-1442) quotes Yazid ibn Abl 
 Hablb as saying that ' Al Mukaukis, the Roman, 
 being governor of Egypt, made peace with 'Amr'; 
 and 'the fort', i.e. Babylon, 'was commanded by 
 Al U'airig under the authority of the Mukaukis'; 
 and of the Mukaukis again ' he governed the country 
 for the emperor Heraclius'. He also made the 
 Treaty of Misr, which the emperor repudiated, 
 ' reproaching his representative with imitating the 
 cowardice and meanness of the Egyptians/ &c. 
 There is no shadow of doubt that Al Makrlzi 
 regarded Al Mukaukis as viceroy of Egypt. 
 
 Abu '1 Mahasin (A.D. 1411-69) says that 'the 
 
 1469 E 
 
66 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 commander of Kasr ash Sham'a (i.e. fortress of 
 Babylon) was ' Ughairig, who was subordinate 
 to Al Mukaukis '.* The same writer says again, 
 ' Then began the siege of the fortress, which was 
 commanded by Al Mandafur 2 on behalf of A I 
 Mukaukis, ibn Karkab al Yunani.' Again he speaks 
 of * the principal Egyptians with their governor 
 Al Mukaukis '. There was no question of an inferior 
 official in the judgement of Abu '1 Mahasin. 
 
 With him As Suyuti (A.D. 1445-1505) is in general 
 agreement : ' The emperor Heraclius repudiated the 
 agreement made by Al Mukaukis with the Arabs/ 
 and so forth. 
 
 In order to meet Dr. Lane-Poole's statement that, 
 so far as the Arabic evidence goes, Al Mukaukis 
 might be ' sub-governor ' or some official under the 
 governor-general of Egypt, I have reviewed the 
 evidence and selected definitions of his authority 
 and position from the principal Arabic historians 
 from Ibn 'Abd al Hakam down to As Suyuti. And 
 what is the result ? They one and all either describe 
 him as b* king or viceroy, and ^>yl prince or 
 governor-general, or else they describe his office in 
 terms which cannot possibly apply to any but the 
 supreme authority in Egypt. The Arabic historians, 
 therefore, can only be taken to prove that the 
 Mukaukis was Heraclius' viceroy in Egypt; and 
 they totally fail to support any theory which would 
 
 1 Two MSS. give the name of the Mukaukis as Z* or t^.. 
 
 ibn Mma. Clearly the name has been transferred from the com- 
 mander of the fortress to the Mukaukis by error. 
 
 2 Probably fuwSdrwp, as I have shown. See Arab Conquest, 
 P- 
 
IN TABARl 67 
 
 assign to him any subordinate position. He was 
 ruler of the country, deputed by the emperor, exactly 
 as Ibn 'Abd al Hakam alleges. 
 
 So much seems fairly established. But if Dr. Lane- 
 Poole was driven to the theory that Al Mukaukis 
 held a subordinate position as the only way of 
 avoiding the identification of Al Mukaukis with 
 Cyrus, and if that theory has been proved totally 
 irreconcilable with the evidence of the Arabic 
 historians on which he relied, then Dr. Lane-Poole's 
 position has become altogether untenable. 
 
 But his argument had two divisions one, that 
 the Arabic evidence told against the identification 
 of Cyrus with the Mukaukis, the other that the 
 Coptic evidence was unworthy of credit. On the 
 first I have rebutted his contention : I now will deal 
 with his attempt to discredit the Coptic authorities. 
 It is quite true that I said in the Arab Conquest of 
 Egypt^ that the historical value of certain Coptic 
 documents which I named is not very great; but 
 the saying is quoted somewhat unfairly against me. 
 The reason I gave was that the writers, ' where 
 they might have told us so much, furnish only a 
 few scanty and incidental allusions to contemporary 
 history ' ; but it is obviously most unjust to reject 
 the historical material which Coptic authorities do 
 afford on the ground that they do not afford more. 
 In these documents the allusions to matters of 
 history are clearly unstudied, and when they relate 
 to contemporary events, they are of unquestionable 
 value. I have already dwelt on the Bodleian 
 seventh-century Coptic MS. recounting the visit of 
 
 1 Pref. p. x. 
 E 2 
 
68 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 the melkite archbishop to the monastery of Kalamun, 
 and I have shown how it agrees with the story of 
 the same event (in which the visitor is called 
 Al Mukaukis) in the Arabic Synaxarium. Is this 
 evidence to be rejected ? On the contrary, I have 
 shown that the identification of Cyrus as military 
 ruler of Egypt is further confirmed by the seventh- 
 century Syriac document, and I may now add that 
 there is a distinct precedent for the union of the 
 supreme secular and ecclesiastical power in a single 
 person to be found in the sixth century. For 
 Justinian offered the patriarchate of Alexandria 
 coupled with the viceroyalty to Theodosius, if only 
 he would accept the tome of Leo ; l and, this being 
 so, there is clearly nothing remarkable in the fact 
 that Heraclius united both offices in the person 
 of Cyrus. 2 Both these statements are made by, or 
 at least occur in, Severus : whose history with its 
 later additions is a compilation the value of which 
 is now admitted by scholars. I spoke somewhat 
 slightingly of it, no doubt ; 3 but I spoke on im- 
 perfect acquaintance with the work, which then 
 existed only in MS., but has since been in large 
 part published. Mr. Evetts, who is editing the 
 text with a translation, thus speaks of the work : 
 ' U Histoire des Patriarches d' A lexandrie est le 
 Liber Pontificalis de 1'Eglise Copte. La premiere 
 partie est une compilation faite . . . par Severe, 
 e"veque d'El Eshmounein dans la Haute- figypte, 
 d'apres des documents grecs et coptes qu'il a trouves 
 dans les monasteres de son pays et qu'il a traduits 
 
 1 Hist. Pat., p. 462. 2 Id., p. 489. 
 
 3 Arab Conquest ', Pref., p. xiv. 
 
IN TABARI 69 
 
 avec 1'aide de quelques clercs. . . . Des le septieme 
 siecle et surtout des l'6poque de la conquete arabe, 
 Thistoire des patriarches devient beaucoup plus 
 complete et plus interessante. Nous avons id une 
 sdrie de vraies biographies e'crites par des auteurs 
 contemporains' With this verdict no one who has 
 carefully studied the work of Severus can fail to 
 agree ; but as I have not seen any reasoned 
 discussion of the question, I may venture to give 
 some of the grounds which justify a high estimate 
 of Severus' authority as a historian. 1 
 
 From the earliest times the records of the Coptic 
 Church seem to have been written mainly in the 
 form of biographies, and to have been preserved in 
 the library of the well-known monastery of Macarius 
 at Wadl Natrun. No better place of security could 
 have been found than within the walls of this remote 
 convent fortress in the desert ; and here were stored 
 the MSS. on which Severus founded his history. 
 A note dated June i, A.D. 1081, and added to the 
 text runs as follows 2 : 'Here ends the sixteenth 
 chapter wherein the history of the fathers is 
 completed as far as Abba Simon, the forty-second 
 patriarch. . . . Hereafter' will follow that which we 
 have translated from the documents in the monastery 
 of St. Macarius, viz. the history of the patriarchs 
 from Michael the Last to Sinuthius the First. We 
 
 1 Renaudot in his preface has some remarks on the value of 
 Severus, and gives reasons for not publishing the whole text; but 
 he does not deal with the internal evidence which the text affords 
 for its historic authenticity (Historia Patriarcharum Alexandrine- 
 
 > Paris, 1713, 4to). 
 
 2 Hist. Pat. Alex, in Patrol. Orient. , t. v, fasc. i, p. 47. 
 
70 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 also translated in this monastery the lives of nine 
 other patriarchs in the year 796 of the Martyrs 
 (A.D. 1080). This is written by Apacyrus the 
 deacon and Michael, son of Apater, of Damanhur, 
 through the grace of God which enabled us to find 
 the histories in the monastery of St. Macarius, with 
 the help of the brother Theodore, the steward, son 
 of Paul, on Sunday the 6th of B'aunah in the 
 year 797 of the righteous martyrs. We have com- 
 pared the MSS. one with another and found them 
 corresponding to our copies, and so we assured our- 
 selves of their authenticity/ 
 
 This is a record of the careful and conscientious 
 study of original sources, and the same process can 
 be traced nearly four centuries earlier. For we 
 learn from another passage l that events up to the 
 time of Chalcedon and Dioscorus (c. A.D. 450) were 
 * written down in the twelfth part of the histories 
 of the Church '. Next, for the chronicle from Cyril 
 down to Alexander ' we may consult the teacher 
 and scribe George, archdeacon and secretary to the 
 patriarch Simon' (A.D. 689-701), who also wrote 
 his history at the monastery of St. Macarius ; and 
 the writer adds, * Therefore I, the vile sinner, beg 
 you to pray the Lord Christ for me that he may 
 loose the bond of my feeble tongue and open my 
 darkened heart and give me knowledge of words, so 
 that I may be able to show forth what you, my 
 brethren and my father, ask of me, not as a teacher 
 and guide above you but as a scholar, since I saw 
 that of which I have written with mine own eyes and its 
 importance imposes an obligation upon me, besides 
 1 Hist. Pa/., pp. 90-93. 
 
IN TABARI 71 
 
 what I heard from friends older than myself such as 
 I could trust and believe. 1 . . . Indeed the Lord 
 Christ knows that we have added nothing to the 
 facts, having related what took place down to the 
 death of the blessed father Theodore, patriarch of 
 Alexandria, and the affairs of state in his days to 
 the end of the seventeenth chapter of the history, 
 completed above,' i.e. to A.D. 743. 'Now ... we 
 will write the eighteenth chapter of the history of 
 the Church/ the historian proceeds, while to an asser- 
 tion which he makes a few lines lower he adds, * as 
 we witnessed with our own eyes many times ' ; and 
 again, * They set up a king called Kyriakos (in 
 Nubia) who has remained king to the day on which 
 I write this history.' 2 Here is clear proof of a con- 
 temporary writer in the eighth century of our era. 
 The writer was the secretary to Musa, bishop of 
 Wasim, near Gizah, who constantly writes in the 
 first person e. g. ' we attended at the palace ', 
 ' there was with us Abba Theodore, bishop of 
 Misr,' &c. and he gives textually an extract of the 
 patriarch Michael's memorandum (on the subject 
 of the monastery of Mlna by Mariut) which was 
 presented to 'Abd al Malik's secretary. 3 On the 
 other hand he defends an omission of certain 
 incidents by saying, * I have related these matters 
 
 1 This bears a close resemblance to the well-known passage in 
 Thucydides i. 22 TO. 8' epya TWV Trpax^cvrwv . . . OVK CK TOV -Trapa- 
 TI'XOVTOS TruvOavofJievos ^i<oo-a ypa<eiv, ov8* ws /xot e^d/cei, aXA.' ots re 
 ttvros Trappy Kat Trapa roiv aAXa>v ocrov Bvvarov aKpififia ?rept eKacrrov 
 ciTf&XQw. It would have been well if Taban and other Arabic 
 writers had shown the same critical spirit and the same regard for 
 historical accuracy. 
 
 2 Hist. Pat.) p. 143. * Id., p. 122. 
 
72 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 in the book of his (Michael's) biography apart 
 from this history/ l But he again records historical 
 events the death of Marwan: 'they impaled Marwan 
 head downwards, having taken him prisoner : and 
 we were witnesses of this event.' 2 
 
 In the seventh century the biographer of John III 
 (A.D. 677-86), in recounting the story of John's 
 last journey to Alexandria says, ' the writer of this 
 history was with him, for he was his spiritual son,' 
 and he gives many graphic details such as a con- 
 temporary writer alone could furnish. 
 
 Further, many historical allusions which occur in 
 Severus and can be controlled, are obviously correct. 
 Thus in the account of Simon I we read, ' On a 
 Sunday news came to the Amir that the army of the 
 Romans had risen against the prince Justinian and 
 deposed him, and had appointed Leontius in his 
 stead.' 3 Simon's patriarchate is dated A.D. 689-701 
 or rather 700, and Justinian II was deposed in 
 A.D. 695. Again, ' Meanwhile the Roman monarchy 
 was like a children's game. 4 For when the Romans 
 had deposed Justinian their prince, they made Leo 
 (or Leontius) their ruler in his place. But Leo was 
 put to death before he had completed the third 
 year of his reign, and after him reigned Apeimarus 
 (called Tiberius). . . After him reigned Philippicus. 
 Then after two years Anastasius was made prince 
 of the Romans and is still reigning. [By saying 
 still the writer means at the time of composing the 
 history. 5 ] ' 
 
 1 Hist. Pat., p. 114. 2 Id., p. 187. 3 Id., p. 35. 
 
 4 Such as that known as King of the Castle. 
 
 6 Hist. Pat., p. 57. The words in square brackets are a note by 
 
IN TABARI 73 
 
 One other instance must suffice. When the tyrant 
 Kurrah was governor of Egypt, we are told that he 
 exercised the most violent extortion, seizing and 
 confiscating private property, estates, revenues, and 
 endowments, till the people were reduced to abject 
 poverty, ' and men began to flee from place to place, 
 but no place would harbour them/ For Kurrah sent 
 his agent, * who collected the fugitives from every 
 place, and brought them back, and bound them and 
 punished them.' 1 These events are recorded as 
 happening in the patriarchate of Alexander II (A.D. 
 705-30). Now this account has been absolutely 
 confirmed by the recently discovered Aphrodito 
 papyri, where precisely the same story of the fugi- 
 tives may be gathered from the Greek documents, 
 which are dated A.D. 708- io. 2 This coincidence 
 of the two versions is exceedingly strong evidence 
 for the historical accuracy of the History of the 
 Patriarchs. 
 
 It is no doubt difficult at times to distinguish the 
 real author of any particular story in this work, 
 for the reason that the biographies and other docu- 
 ments embodied in the history were written by 
 several hands during the life or just after the death 
 of the successive patriarchs ; and the ego of the 
 writer is constantly changing. Thus the compiler 
 who says, at the end of the life of Michael I, ' he 
 
 the translator or editor of the original Greek or Coptic record. 
 Mr. Evetts ascribes the note to Mauhub. 
 
 1 Hist. Pat., p. 64. 
 
 2 See two articles by Mr. H. I. Bell, (i) The Aphrodito Papyri 'in 
 Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xxviii, p. 98 (1908), and (2) 
 Translations of the Greek Aphrodito Papyri in the British Museum 
 in Der Islam, Bd. ii, Heft 2/3, p. 270 (Strassburg, 1911). 
 
74 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 remained on the evangelical throne, according to the 
 statement which we found in the library of the 
 monastery of St. Macarius, twenty-three years and a 
 half *(to A.D. 768), cannot be the same as the writer 
 who speaks of Anastasius as Roman emperor still 
 reigning, though he is doubtless the author of the 
 comment on the word still. But the fact that the 
 various MSS. found in the library were copied 
 verbatim et litter atim, and that they go back to the 
 earliest times and are contemporary for the most 
 part with the events recorded, gives a very high 
 value to the work. Of course, miraculous and 
 fabulous elements as well as mistakes are found, just 
 as they are found in all the Arab historians ; but 
 there would be little early history of any sort left, if 
 every record tainted with legendary matter or error 
 were rejected. And on the whole I say without 
 fear that the general credibility of the patriarchal 
 chronicles on matters of history is established beyond 
 question. 
 
 This has been a rather long digression ; but it 
 was necessary to rebut Dr. Lane-Poole's assertion 
 impugning Severus' authority. He makes a great 
 point of the apparent admission by Severus that he 
 did not know Greek or Coptic. This confession of 
 ignorance is certainly made by the writer of the third 
 preface to the history ; but there is strong evidence 
 that Severus' name was attached by the error of a 
 copyist to that preface, which Severus cannot have 
 written. 2 There proves therefore on examination to 
 
 1 Hist. Pat., p. 215. 
 
 2 The share of Severus in the editorship of these histories is 
 difficult to determine. If the third preface were written by him, it 
 
IN TABARI 75 
 
 be little or no warrant for the belief that Severus 
 was ignorant of Greek and Coptic, and every warrant 
 for the belief that his history was a careful com- 
 pilation founded upon authentic documents. It is 
 accordingly wrong to discredit his evidence ; indeed, 
 I am not aware of a single Arab historian whose 
 work can be shown to be based in the same way 
 upon a continuous series of written records, and 
 records, for the most part, of contemporary writers. 
 The Arab historians recount a great many traditions 
 of early times, but they very seldom cite or even 
 mention original documents. 1 In other words, Coptic 
 history is based on a much more scientific and solid 
 foundation of MS. authority. 
 
 These considerations justify such an estimate of 
 the historical value of Severus' work, that its evidence 
 on the question of Al Mukaukis' identity cannot be 
 
 would mean that his collection went down to his own times, i. e. at 
 least to A. D. 977, and that it included some biographies, composed 
 by himself, of patriarchs his contemporaries. But the author or 
 compiler of the ten biographies from Michael III (A.D. 88 1) to 
 Sinuthius II (died A.D. 1047) was Michael, bishop of Tlnnis ; and 
 in these Severus had no hand. It seems probable, according to 
 the best opinion, that Severus' own work was the collection and 
 compilation of the lives of the first forty-two patriarchs from 
 St. Mark to Simon I, and that this is the work referred to as the 
 Book of Biographies in the list of Severus' works given in the Life 
 of Philotheus (A.D. 981-1005); and also the work which about 
 a hundred years later was discovered at the monastery of the Lady 
 at Nahya by Mauhub, as he relates in his preface to the twenty- 
 sixth chapter of the History of the Patriarchs, a chapter not yet 
 published (Paris MS. 302, p. 135). 
 
 1 Of course, it is common enough for one Arab writer to quote 
 another, e. g. Makrlzl cites Ibn 'Abd al Hakam and others. But 
 Ibn 'Abd al Hakam does not enlighten us with regard to his 
 original MS. sources. 
 
76 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 lightly set aside. Let us see then what Severus 
 says or rather the biographer of the patriarch 
 Benjamin. 
 
 ' Heraclius appointed Cyrus, governor of Egypt, 
 to be both patriarch and governor together/ When 
 Cyrus came to Alexandria Benjamin was warned 
 and fled to a desert monastery in Upper Egypt, 
 where he remained in hiding for ten years, and 
 1 these were the years ', he says, ' during which 
 Heraclius and Al Mukaukis reigned over Egypt/ 
 He again speaks of Al Mukaukis as having driven 
 him away, and speaks of Cyrus as ' the misbelieving 
 governor of Alexandria, who was both governor 
 and patriarch under the Romans '.* This language 
 establishes the identity of Cyrus and Al Mukaukis 
 very clearly, and, as I have shown, 2 it completely 
 agrees with the language of the Arabic Synaxarium 3 
 ' Al Mukaukis was head of the faith of Chalcedon, 
 and had been made governor and patriarch over 
 Egypt', and with the Ethiopic Synaxarium, ' Al 
 Mukaukis, i. e. the governor and archbishop of the 
 city of Alexandria and all the land of Egypt/ * 
 I have also shown the exact correspondence of the 
 language with that of the contemporary Bodleian 
 MS., which makes the Mukaukis hold the two offices 
 of archbishop (or patriarch) and controller of finance 
 in Egypt ; and I have shown how a nearly contem- 
 
 1 Hist. Pat., pp. 490, 491, 495. 
 
 2 Arab Conquest, p. 521. 
 
 3 The fact that the story of Benjamin at Kalamun and the visit 
 of Al Mukaukis is confirmed by the contemporary Bodleian MS., 
 is good evidence for the authority of the Synaxarium on this 
 question. 
 
IN TABARI 77 
 
 porary Syriac MS., the Chronicon Anonymum, makes 
 the patriarch of Alexandria responsible for the mili- 
 tary defences of Egypt against the Arabs ; while 
 on the other hand the Arab historian Ibn 'Abd al 
 Hakam describes the viceroy of Heraclius in Egypt 
 as possessing full military power and as controller of 
 finance, and calls him Al Mukaukis. 
 
 The Greek historians also use language tending 
 to the same conclusion. Nicephorus 1 says that 
 Heraclius sent Marianus to Alexandria to act in 
 concert with Cyrus, the patriarch of Alexandria, and 
 to settle together some arrangement with regard to 
 the Arabs ; and again he speaks of Cyrus as bishop 
 of Alexandria. 2 
 
 Theophanes is more explicit. He says, 'on the 
 death of George (melkite or Chalcedonian patriarch) 
 Cyrus was sent as bishop to Alexandria/ 3 and speak- 
 ing of the Arabs he says: 'They invaded Egypt. 
 Now Cyrus was charged before the emperor with 
 having made over the gold of Egypt to the Arabs, 
 and the emperor sent an angry message for his 
 recall/ * 
 
 The facts to which these Greek writers testify are 
 as follows. Both agree that Cyrus was patriarch of 
 
 1 Nicephorus Constantinopolitanus, De Rebus post Mauricium 
 ges/is, Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant., p. 28 TrapayyeiAas ws ava/coi- 
 vovcrQaL Kvpw TU> 'AAc^avSpeias tepap^ry KCU ws av KOLVTJ /SovAevcroiVTO 
 TO. Trpos TOVS ^apaKryvovs StaSoivro. 
 
 2 Id. ib., p. 30. 
 
 3 See Corp. Script. Hist. Byzani.^ Theophanes, t. i, p. 507. 
 
 4 Id. ib., p. 5*8 ^rparcvovtri /car' AtyvTrrov. Kar^yopeiTO Se 6 
 KOpos CTTI TOV ^curiAews a>s TO \pva-iov TT/S AtyvTrrov rots 
 
 Sov?. /cat aTrocrmA.as /xer' opy^s TOVTOV 
 
78 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 Alexandria. Nicephorus also represents Marianus, 1 
 the military commander, as sent by Heraclius under 
 orders to act with Cyrus in reference to the Arabs 
 a statement which implies that Cyrus had secular 
 as well as ecclesiastical authority in Egypt ; while 
 Theophanes asserts that Cyrus, having undertaken 
 to pay tribute to the Arabs, was angrily recalled 
 by Heraclius. This again implies that Cyrus was 
 armed with secular power as Heraclius' viceroy, 
 and the allusion is clearly to the treaty of Misr 
 made by Cyrus and its angry repudiation by the 
 emperor. 2 
 
 1 The names Marinus and Marianus are both given in Theo- 
 phanes, but to separate persons; and I cannot help wondering 
 whether these names lie concealed under the Arabic Abu Maryam 
 and Abu Maryam. Marianus also is found in the biography of 
 Benjamin in Severus. It is of course true that these Graeco-Roman 
 names are given to generals and not to bishops, as in Tabari's 
 story; but the confusion is quite possible. The name Aretianus 
 is also found, and some confusion with Aretion certainly exists 
 here ; while Arrianus seems to be another variant. 
 
 2 Caetani (pp. 244-5) nas a l n g note criticizing what he calls 
 my reconstruction of the conquest in connexion with this incident. 
 He is persuaded that the Copts, literally so called as distinct from 
 the Romans, entered into the treaty of Misr a view which I have 
 endeavoured to refute above and he remarks : ' Non e logico che 
 i Copti, nel fare un trattato con gli Arabi, si riserbassero di sentire 
 il parere ed avere Tapprovazione di Eraclio. 6 chiaro che Eraclio 
 1'avrebbe respinto. Nel testo di Ibn 'Abd al Hakam si parla 
 d'un solo trattato e non di due. Giro al principio dell' assedio di 
 Babilonia era forse in Alessandria, e le fonti bizantine ignorano 
 questo trattato respinto da Eraclio e la deposizione di Giro per 
 effetto di esso.' Apart from the fallacious assumption that the 
 Copts, as such, were in a position to make any treaty, it seems 
 a sufficient answer to say that the learned Italian writer must have 
 forgotten Theophanes. For the rest, I cannot agree that the recall 
 of Cyrus was caused by his general mismanagement of the war, or 
 by a sudden outburst of wrath on Heraclius' part, or that his 
 
IN TABARI 79 
 
 But how closely this evidence of the Greek 
 historians tallies with that of the Arab writers in all 
 but this one point that the Arabs use the term 
 A I Mukaukis where the Greeks write Cyrus ! For 
 the Arab writers agree generally that the treaty with 
 'Amr was made by Al Mukaukis, that it had to be 
 submitted by him for approval to Heraclius, and 
 that Heraclius repudiated it with anger ; and though 
 they do not mention the recall of Al Mukaukis, the 
 recall of Cyrus is confirmed by the contemporary 
 writer John of Nikiou. 
 
 It remains briefly to notice the testimony of two 
 Christian Arabic historians Abu Salih, and Said 
 ibn al Batrik or Eutychius. Abu Salih, while 
 agreeing that Al Mukaukis was made governor of 
 Egypt by Heraclius, 1 also says that the ten years 
 of banishment suffered by the patriarch Benjamin 
 were the ten years during which Al Mukaukis was 
 ruling in Egypt. 2 I do not blink the fact that 
 Abu Salih makes the Mukaukis bear the name of 
 George, son of Mlna, 3 and that other writers give 
 
 mission to Egypt after Heraclius' death proves that he was not 
 regarded as a traitor. It merely proves that the surrender advocated 
 by Cyrus was no longer thought impossible. One more point. 
 Yakut expressly says that though the Mukaukis generally resided 
 at Alexandria, yet that he was at Babylon at the time of the siege, 
 as Caetani (p. 254) records : how then can Caetani justify the 
 assertion that he was perhaps at Alexandria ? 
 
 1 Caetani, p. 81. 2 Id., p. 230. 
 
 3 I have not much to alter in the views expressed by me in the 
 Arab Conquest (pp. 522-3), though I doubt now whether Al 'Araj 
 (which means ' the cripple ') was suggested in any way by Jurij or 
 Juraij. It looks more like a nickname to which we have no further 
 clue ; while Juraij doubtless, as Caetani remarks, corresponds to 
 Gregory rather than to George. In that case it = Karkar. Caetani, 
 
8o THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 other names ; but it is sufficient to say that no 
 name whatever is attached to the title in any early 
 authority, ai\d that a name first occurring five or 
 six centuries after the death of Al Mukaukis cannot 
 stand for a moment against the cumulative force of 
 the arguments identifying Al Mukaukis with Cyrus. 
 Abu Salih the Armenian then agrees with the 
 Coptic and Greek and with the Egyptian historians 
 as to the office which Al Mukaukis held, and he 
 agrees with Severus that Al Mukaukis was the 
 Chalcedonian persecutor of the Copts who drove 
 Benjamin into exile. 
 
 Eutychius (A.D. 876-939) wrote about three cen- 
 turies before Abu Salih, and it must be remembered 
 that he was not merely a Chalcedonian himself, 
 but actually melkite patriarch in Egypt. He says, 
 ' After the flight of George, Cyrus became patriarch 
 of Alexandria. He was a Maronite, of the same 
 creed as Heraclius ' ; l but in another place 2 he says : 
 
 The controller of the revenue in Egypt on behalf of 
 the emperor Heraclius was A I Mukaukis, ' who was ', 
 he adds, 'a Jacobite (or Copt) hating the Romans, 
 but not daring to betray his Jacobite opinions, lest 
 he should be put to death by the Romans ' ! 
 
 Of course Eutychius as melkite patriarch was 
 anxious to remove from the memory of Cyrus the 
 
 p. 91 : cf. also his note on p. 94 with reference to my explanation 
 of the term Karkar. 
 
 1 Eutychii Annales, ed. Pococke, t. ii, p. 267 (Oxon., 1654, 4to). 
 
 2 Id. ib., p. 302. 
 
IN TABARI 81 
 
 odium of the surrender of Egypt to the Arabs ; 
 but he is driven to strange shifts. Thus having 
 declared that Cyrus came as patriarch on Heraclius' 
 appointment to Alexandria, he avers on the same 
 page that there was no melkite patriarch of Alex- 
 andria for ninety-seven years after the flight of 
 George a very daring perversion of history. Ap- 
 parently, therefore, Eutychius at once refuses to 
 recognize Cyrus as melkite patriarch and at the 
 same time charges Al Mukaukis with being a Copt 
 at heart. The very charge is an admission that Al 
 Mukaukis was professedly a melkite : and though 
 Eutychius does not say that Cyrus and Al Mukaukis 
 were one, this coincidence is very significant ; while 
 his further statement that Al Mukaukis was made 
 controller of the revenue by Heraclius brings him 
 into line with Ibn 'Abd al Hakam and with the 
 Bodleian Coptic MS. Like the Arab writers too 
 Eutychius represents Al Mukaukis as present in 
 the fortress of Babylon at the siege, as retiring to 
 Raudah, as negotiating with 'Amr, and as con- 
 cluding peace by the Treaty of Misr. But I attri- 
 bute Eutychius' failure to identify Cyrus with Al 
 Mukaukis in terms rather to ignorance than to dis- 
 ingenuousness an ignorance which leads him to 
 speak of Al Mukaukis as alive at the time of 
 Manuel's rebellion. 1 
 
 1 Ibn 'Abd al Hakam has been quoted as supporting this state- 
 ment ; but the fact is that there was no one alive at the date of 
 Manuel's rebellion (A. D. 645) to whom the name could apply, and 
 Arab writers persistently confuse the peaceful surrender of Alex- 
 andria by the Mukaukis with its subsequent recapture from the 
 rebel Manuel. 
 
 149 
 
82 THE TREATY OF MISR 
 
 I have now shown what an extraordinary con- 
 currence and convergence of evidence there is from 
 original and sometimes contemporary documents 
 Greek, Coptic, Syriac, and Arabic establishing the 
 identity of Al Mukaukis with Cyrus, Patriarch of 
 Alexandria, Controller of the Revenues, and Governor- 
 General of Egypt at the time of the conquest. It 
 is no answer to say that the title Al Mukaukis is 
 sometimes given by Arab historians to this or that 
 person who cannot have been Cyrus. I admit the 
 fact, but totally deny the conclusion that, because the 
 term is misapplied in particular cases and bestowed 
 on different persons, therefore it does not properly 
 belong to any single person. That seems to be 
 Caetani's argument. 1 But the truth rather is that 
 while the Arab historians for the most part wrote 
 with only a vague notion of the Mukaukis as 
 
 1 p. 342. 'Nella narrazione della resa di Babilonia presso le 
 fonti Arabi noi crediamo percid possibile che sotto il nome di Al 
 Muqawqis siano da intendersi due persone distinte e diverse, le 
 quali nullo hanno che fare con Giro ossia il comandante militare 
 greco che consegn6 la rocca di Babilonia, e un qualche vescovo 
 copto che ottenne un accordo provvisorio per la protezione delli 
 Copti sino alia fine della campagna contro i Greci. Siccome Giro 
 infine riappare sicuramente nei cronisti musulmani come Al 
 Muqawqis alia resa di Alessandria, e evidente che sotto un sclo 
 nome si ascondono per lo meno tre persone distinte.' Again on 
 pp. 2445 ne speaks of my 'erroneous theory that A) Mukaukis 
 is always Cyrus '. That of course is an unfair presentment of the 
 case. I admit fully that actions and situations are ascribed by 
 Arab historians to an Al Mukaukis who cannot always be Cyrus ; 
 but their erroneous application of the name does not render my 
 theory erroneous. But I hope it is not presumptuous to say, in 
 differing from Caetani, that I have the profoundest respect and 
 admiration for his monumental Annali dell' Islam and the amazing 
 amount of scholarly labour and research which it contains. 
 
IN TABARl 83 
 
 governor of Egypt, they not unnaturally represent 
 him at times as concerned in actions or incidents in 
 which he had no direct part or presence. They 
 were undeniably bewildered on the subject of his 
 name and personality, and thus make mistakes 
 about it. But the problem remains amid their 
 discrepancies to discover the true personality to 
 identify the real Mukaukis. No Arab writer has 
 said or could say that there were three different 
 persons all rightly bearing that title : nor is it 
 logical to argue that the existence of discrepancies 
 renders the riddle of the title insoluble. It is the 
 business of historical criticism to sift discrepancies 
 and to get at the underlying truth. And I venture 
 to think that an impartial survey of the evidence 
 establishes beyond question the conclusion that Al 
 Mukaukis must be identified with Cyrus and with 
 no one else. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbreviations, 5. 
 
 'Abdallah ibn 'Abd ar Rahman, 
 
 10, 59- 
 
 'Abdallah, son of Zubair, 35. 
 Abrahah ibn as Sabbah, 12. 
 Abu Harithah, 10, 12. 
 Abu Maryamj 10, n, 13, 59, 
 Abu Maryamj 60, 64, 7872. 
 Abu Salih, 79-80. 
 Abu 'LJthman, 10, 1 1, 15. 
 'Ain Shams (or Heliopolis), 12, 
 
 13, 26, 60, 65. 
 Alexandria, 8, 9, 10, 12, 59, 65, 
 
 72, 76, 77. 
 'All ibn Sahl, 14. 
 'Amr ibn al 'Asi, 8, 9, n, 13, 
 
 14, 18, 24, 33, 36. 
 'Amr ibn Shu'aib, 13. 
 Aphrodito papyri, 60 n., 73. 
 Arab authorities v. Mukaukis. 
 Aretianus, 78 n. 
 
 Aretion, 12 ., 31 n. 
 Artabun, 1 2 ;/. 
 'Auf ibn Malik, 12. 
 
 Babal Yun, 8, 9, 10, 18, 20, 21, 
 
 50 n. 
 Babylon, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 
 
 23, 26, 28, 31, 53, 65. 
 Balhib, 9, 59. 
 Bell', H. I., 73 . 
 Benjamin, patriarch, 60 ;/., 79. 
 Bishop of Babylon, 58. 
 
 Hulwan, 58. 
 
 - Memphis, 58, 64. 
 
 - Misr, 59, 64. 
 
 - Nikiou v. John of Nikiou. 
 
 Tinms, 75 n. 
 Blemmyes, 40, 41. 
 
 Caesar, 13, 29. 
 
 Caetani, L., 33 ., 34 ., 49, 50, 
 
 51-3, 82. 
 
 Casanova, P., 20, 21, 22, 23. 
 Chronicon Anonymum, 63, 74. 
 Chosroes, 13. 
 Controller of Revenue, 61, 62, 
 
 80, 82. 
 
 Coptic authorities v. Mukaukis. 
 Coptos, town, 41. 
 Cyrus, patriarch, 27, 54 seq., 
 passim. 
 
 Damascus, treaty of, 26. 
 
 Eclipse of sun, 62 n. 
 Egyptians in seventh cent., 2 7- 
 
 30- 
 Eutychius, 80-8 1. 
 
 Farama, 12. 
 
 Farkab, 12. 
 
 Fortress of Babylon, 19-24. 
 
 Fustat, 13, 17-20. 
 
 ' Garrisons/ Dr. Lane-Poole's 
 
 theory of, 34 ., 38-46. 
 George, son of Mina, 55, 57. 
 Graeco-Roman population, 27- 
 
 9, 31- 
 
 Greek authorities v. Mukaukis. 
 
 Harat ar Rum, church in, 26. 
 Harat az Zuwailah, church in, 26. 
 Heliopolis v. 'Ain Shams. 
 Heraclius, 13, 27, 29, 49, 50, 55, 
 61, 64, 65,66,77,78, 79,81. 
 Hulwan, 58. 
 
86 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ibn Abd al Hakam, 61-3, 67, 
 
 81 n. 
 
 Ibn 'Auf, 36. 
 Ibn Humaid, 8. 
 Ibn Ishak, 8. 
 Ibn Lahfah, 14. 
 Istabl Antar, 19. 
 
 John of Nikiou, 10, 1 6, 17, 26, 
 29, 33-> 48, 49> 5, 5i, 53> 
 
 79- 
 
 Justinian I, mission to Nubia, 42. 
 
 Justinian II, 72. 
 
 Kasim the Egyptian, 8, 10. 
 Kasr ash Shama c , 17, 19, 21, 
 
 22, 23, 53. 
 
 Kasr Ibrim, town, 41. 
 Katholikos, n, 18, 64. 
 origin and meaning of term, 
 
 57-60. 
 
 Khalidibn Mi'dan, u, 36. 
 Khalid ibn Walid, 36. 
 Khargah, oasis, 41. 
 Kurrah, Arab governor, 73. 
 Kyriakos, king of Nubia, 71. 
 
 Lane-Poole, S., passim. 
 Leo (Leontius), 72. 
 Leo, tome of, 68. 
 Lydda, treaty of, 26. 
 
 Madain, 35. 
 
 Mandaiur, 66. 
 
 Manuel's rebellion, 81. 
 
 Marianusj g 
 
 Marinus j * * 
 
 Melkites, 27. 
 
 Memphis, 26, 30, 64. 
 
 Metropolitan, title, 57-9. 
 
 Misr, 13, 14, 21, 23-6, 33, 46, 
 
 47, 48, 5, 53- 
 
 Misr, capitulation of, 58, 59, 64. 
 Monastery of Mina by Mariut, 7 1 . 
 Monophysites, 27. 
 Mu'awlah, 36. 
 
 Mukaukis, u, 14, 16, 18, 29, 
 
 3> 3i- 
 
 identity of, 54 seq. 
 
 Arab authorities on, 61 seq., 
 75- 
 
 Coptic authorities on, 61, 62, 
 67 seq., 75. 
 
 Greek authorities on, 77. 
 
 Syriac authorities on, 63. 
 
 Nub, meaning of term, 38 seq. 
 Nubia, 14, 39, 42, 71. 
 Nubians, 13, 27, 34, 38 seq., 51. 
 
 Omar, caliph, 9, n, 15, 35, 47. 
 Othman, caliph, 8. 
 
 Persians in Egypt, 19, 22. 
 Poll-tax, 34, 36, 37, 46-8, 51, 
 
 52. 
 
 Primis = Kasr Ibrim, 41. 
 Ptolemais, 41, 42. 
 
 Rabia', 10, 13. 
 
 Raudah, island of, 18, 23, 29. 
 References, table of, 5. 
 Roman army in Egypt, 43 . 
 
 fortress v. Fortress and 
 Babylon. 
 
 Romans and Copts, 24-31. 
 
 Saif, 10, n, 13, 52. 
 Salamah, 8. 
 Sari, 10, n, 13, 15. 
 Severus, credibility of, 68-75. 
 Shu'aib, 10, 12, 13, 14. 
 Silko, king of Nubia, 42. 
 Synaxarium, 62, 68, 76. 
 Syriac authorities v. Mukaukis. 
 
 Tendounias, 26. 
 Traditions in Tabarl, 8-14. 
 Trajan, 19, 21 ., 22 n. 
 Treaties, early, 15, 25, 26. 
 Treaty of Alexandria, 16, 33 ., 
 
 5i. 
 
 Jerusalem, 32, 44, 51. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Treaty of Misr, text, 32-3. 
 - Misr, translation, 33-6. 
 
 U'airig, 65, 66. 
 'Ubadah, n, 23. 
 'Umm Dunain, 26. 
 
 Walid, 14. 
 Wardan, 35. 
 
 Weil, 44. 
 
 Wellhausen, 49, 51, 52. 
 
 Yazid, 14. 
 Yunah, 50 n. 
 
 Ziyad ibn Jazu, 8. 
 Zubaid, Banu, 10. 
 Zubair, n, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 
 35. 52, 60. 
 
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